After more than two weeks of negotiations, a coalition will be formed between the Labour Party and Green party to lead Sheffield City Council.
Following a ‘No overall control’ result from the council elections on 6th May, Labour will be forming a coalition administration with the Green Party.
Labour, who were the largest party on the council, obtained 41 seats for Sheffield. This meant that they still needed two seats to obtain a majority.
The Green Party who gathered 13 seats for the region, were always the most probable candidates to be able to create the majority.
The announcement was made yesterday morning by Labour Leader Terry Fox, and Deputy Labour Leader Julie Grocutt, along with Green councillor members Alison Teal and Douglas Johnson outside of the Peace Gardens.
The group stressed that this council partnership was not a coalition but a “co-operative administration”.
This follows negotiations that has led the Liberal Democrats to decline a “Rainbow cabinet.”
Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield, Shaffaq Mohammed, has been noted as saying that the party wanted to stand as “strong opposition.”
An annual meeting was called at Ponds Forge yesterday, where along with the coalition announcement, Gail Smith, Liberal Democrat Councillor for Mosborough, was voted and inaugurated as the 124th Lord Mayor of Sheffield.
Green Party councillor for Walkley, Bernard Little has called it a “huge change for the city.”
He said: “There’s going to be new rules set so we don’t work in such an adversarial way, so it’s very exciting. Not many councils have gone through this process so this is a first step.”
When asked about the new changes to the council system, Mr Little stated: “You can imagine the council as a whole is feeling a bit nervous about how this will work out, because it is a big change.”