WARRINGTON'S proposed budget for this year is so good that the opposition parties are having a hard time opposing it, according to the ruling Labour group.

The proposed budget for 1999-2000 was unveiled at the council's Policy Meeting on Monday night. It includes a council tax increase which is one of the lowest in the country.

Lib Dem councillors were expected to put forward their own proposal, but the meeting was cut short when they had nothing to show.

Council leader John Gartside said: "We were expecting them to come up with their own proposal, but I think the problem for them is that ours is quite a responsible budget.

"Our council tax increase is probably going to be the lowest in Cheshire, and I suppose the opposition parties have got some difficulty really, in terms of opposing it. What they would like us to do is put on 10 per cent!"

He added: "I particularly wanted to come in under the government guidelines to show that the unitary thing works in essence."

But Warrington's Lib Dem Leader, Clr Barbara Mawer, said that they were intending to put forward their own budget proposals.

She said: "We will produce it at a later stage. If we had produced it at the policy meeting it would have been voted out, and that would have been the end of it." The Lib Dem version will be appear at the Full Council meeting on March 1. "It's a charade because they are not really interested in our budget," added Clr Mawer.

"But we shall have some interesting ideas to put forward."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.