Wesley Fitzgerald reappointed as Leader of Cheshire East

WilmslowWestandChorely Wesley Fitzgerald

Councillor Wesley Fitzgerald has been reappointed as the Leader of Cheshire East Council.

The Conservative, who represents Wilmslow West and Chorley Ward was formally elected to the post at a meeting of Full Council on Wednesday, May 18th.

There were two candidates and the result of yesterday's ballot was 45 votes for Wesley Fitzgerald and 20 votes for the Independent candidate, Councillor David Brickhill. There were 4 abstentions and 2 void votes.

Cllr Fitzgerald, who is also the leader of the Conservative Group and Chairman of the Cabinet with responsibilities for resources, has led Cheshire East Council since it was formed as a new unitary authority on April 1st, 2009.

He unveiled an unchanged Cabinet team – except for the introduction of a new member to replace health and wellbeing portfolio holder Cllr Andrew Knowles, who lost his seat at the local elections.

Cllr Wesley Fitzgerald said: "I am honoured and proud to have maintained the confidence of my party group and the elected council members to be re-elected to lead Cheshire East Council.

"Cheshire East is a new authority and, as it enters its third year, projects are still in progress but not yet matured. This situation led me to believe that I would have been standing back from unfinished business if I had not chosen to stand again for the leadership of the Council.

"With regards to the major changes which will take place within the NHS, I believe that over the next five years, the joining together of primary care and public health is an absolute necessity.

"It will be vital from at least two view points: firstly, for joined-up provision of preventative health care and the promotion of good health and, secondly, for greater co-operation and coordination in provision of care for the sick.

"My Cabinet is essentially the same strong, capable and committed team – but with one new and talented recruit.

"Reflecting my comments on the growing importance of joined-up health care, I have appointed new member Cllr Peter Hayes to oversee the health and wellbeing portfolio.

"Cllr Hayes has considerable experience within the health service, having chaired the Macclesfield NHS Trust for 11 years and sat on national health committees.

"The composition of the Cabinet is now one which has matured into an effective group, who know each other and work well together as a team. This is an essential prerequisite to meeting the challenges ahead – most significantly, delivering more for less for the people of Cheshire East.

"We have a lean budget this year and we are still shaping the workforce to the true needs of the services.

"We look forward to performing effectively and preparing Cheshire East to be an excellent and exemplary Council for the benefit of all our residents."

The Cabinet members are:

● Cllr Wesley Fitzgerald, Council Leader, Chairman of the Cabinet with responsibilities for resources;

● Cllr Roland Domleo, Deputy Leader, responsibilities for adult services;

● Cllr Rachel Bailey, responsibilities for safer and stronger communities;

● Cllr Peter Hayes, responsibilities for health and wellbeing;

● Cllr Rod Menlove, responsibilities for environmental services;

● Cllr David Brown, responsibilities for performance and capacity;

● Cllr Peter Mason, responsibilities for procurement, assets and shared services;

● Cllr Hilda Gaddum, responsibilities for children and family services;

● Cllr Jamie Macrae, responsibilities for prosperity.

Photo: Cheshire East Council Leader Cllr Wesley Fitzgerald

Tags:
Cheshire East Council, Peter Hayes, Wesley Fitzgerald
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Brendan Murphy
Wednesday 25th May 2011 at 9:23 pm
When you publish "hand outs" from political parties or governmental bodies, you should make it clear that is exactly where the story comes from, as distinct from stories written by independent journalists.
Lisa Reeves
Wednesday 25th May 2011 at 9:44 pm
This article, with the addition of one paragraph, has come from Cheshire East but I didn't feel the need to acknowledge that.

It is not a propaganda piece, it is purely stating facts and everything else is clearly marked as a quote from Wesley Fitzgerald.

I am an independent journalist and don't just publish 'hand outs' except where they are factual or quotes which our readers can clearly recognise the source of.
Brendan Murphy
Thursday 26th May 2011 at 8:32 am
I know you are an independent journalist and apologise for any implication otherwise. However, for the first time Cllr Fitzgerald was challenged and his credentials for the job questioned. He only got 27 votes out of 52 in his own group but given the whip on Conservative majority, that still translated into a victory .. and even then he lost a handful of conservative votes. In effect, the leader of Cheshire East was chosen by 27 councillors out of 82 - hardly a ringing endorsement. Even more interesting was the leaked e-mail sent by the deputy leader canvassing for support. He referred to one named person offering cabinet jobs in return for votes. The e-mail went on to suggest that he (the deputy leader) wanted to take over the leadership in due course. In short, we now have a serious schism in the leadership of the Council.

There is nothing wrong in using a hand-out from the council or anybody else. But when it comes to dealing with a public authority, surely there is an onus on an independent jouranlist to give readers the whole story and not just a partial account.
Gary Barton
Thursday 26th May 2011 at 2:50 pm
As someone who was effectively elected with the support of only 23.5% of the Tytherington electorate, perhaps you should be less keen to comment.

Wesley received the backing of more then 50% of the Conservative group, not bad when there were three good candidates. He then secured 45 out of 65 votes cast at the Council meeting - 69% of the votes cast (excluding abstensions).

All in all, democracy has been enacted and Wesley has rightly retained leadership of Cheshire East in recognition of the exellent work done - as reflected by the Conservatives retaining a good majoirty on the Council. We know there is more work to be done and I am glad we have a strong leader to keep us moving forward.

Any positive suggestions on how we can do better are always welcome.
Lisa Reeves
Thursday 26th May 2011 at 3:11 pm
Brendan, I have at no point said it was a 'ringing endorsement' I have merely stated the facts and left it to our readers to reach their own conclusion.

With regards to providing what you refer to as the "whole story" it is somewhat difficult, actually impossible, to report on the leaked e-mail unless someone leaks that information to me. As it stands, who ever decided to leak that information provided it to the local newspaper but not to wilmslow.co.uk.

Your comment would seem to suggest that I am choosing to withhold information and choosing to provide only a partial account which is certainly not the case. I am reporting on the information I have and what I have written is factually correct.

Our members are of course welcome to add their own comments to any articles and any additional information they have about the situation.