A NEW leader of the opposition on Liberal Democrat-run Somerset Council has been elected after the Conservative group of councillors held their annual meeting.

Cllr Diogo Rodrigues, who was previously the Conservative group’s deputy leader and shadow portfolio holder for finance, procurement, and performance, succeeded Cllr Mandy Chilcott, from Minehead, who stood down at the meeting.

He recognised he was taking over ‘at a time of real concern’ about the Lib Dem administration’s handling of Somerset’s finances and frontline services.

Cllr Rodrigues said since the new unitary county-wide council was formed, its Lib Dem leadership had overseen ‘a spiral of poor decisions’, slashing local services while pushing council tax to record highs.

He said the council’s most recent budget relied on making hundreds of job roles redundant, cutting council tax support for 12,000 working-age adults, increasing parking charges across the county, reducing gully cleaning and grass cutting, and offloading key services to town and parish councils.

Resources to support the delivery of superfast broadband in rural areas had been scrapped, and council-owned assets sold at an estimated to date £27million loss to council taxpayers.

Cllr Rodrigues said: “The Liberal Democrats are failing Somerset and residents are paying the price.

“Council tax has gone up, yet local services have declined.

“Our Conservative team will keep standing up for residents, holding this failing administration to account, and working hard to earn the trust of communities across our great county.”

Cllr Rodrigues, whose family run a number of restaurants, represents Bridgwater East and Bawdrip on the unitary council and also serves on Bridgwater Town Council, where he was the town’s mayor in 2018-19 and is a former chamber of commerce manager and previously served on the now defunct Sedgemoor District Council.

Frome North Cllr Dawn Denton was elected as the Conservative group’s deputy leader.