Councillor Charlotte Haitham Taylor signed off as leader of Wokingham Borough Council last night (Thursday) by taking aim at her Conservative colleagues.

In her resignation speech to the council, she said “this is the Me Too age” and called for a move away from the “old boys network style of the past”.

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She continued: “As a key objective, I have aimed to raise levels of transparency in the decision making of this council.

“It was disappointing that for some in my group, this had not been seen as a priority, and for a few, it still appears not to be.”

Councillor Julian McGhee-Sumner is set to take over as council leader next month having secured the leadership of the Conservative group days after Cllr Haitham Taylor announced her resignation.

He told the News: "What I want to do is take us back to what a council should be doing.

"I want us to to turn into a council that listens to its residents and tries to come up with solutions.

"People pay a fortune in council tax and we are not delivering.

"I think that has been lost for a while now."

The outgoing leader told the chamber about how her resignation came about, saying the Conservative group met last week and “on this occasion certain members wanted to challenge my position in order to promote their particular narrative.”

Councillor Haitham Taylor spoke for just under ten minutes, telling the council of her “achievements under my leadership”.

She highlighted the council’s financial position as one of these accomplishments, claiming the council is on course to deliver a balanced budget and that “we are not the new Northamptonshire”.

The former leader also spoke of her pride at the planned opening of Waterstones in the town centre, but added that her “heart has sunk at the pain of the regeneration for the existing shopkeepers and business owners who have suffered, and this I regret.”

She continued: “I do believe in the coming months as each stage of the regeneration is completed, our vision to revive Wokingham town centre will be fully vindicated.”

However the majority of her speech focused on her concerns for the council going forward.

She said: “Under previous leaderships, I fear we plodded along on a path of just muddling through.”

The councillor added: “Under our new leader we cannot slide back to the old ways.”

Cllr Haitham Taylor finished her speech by highlighting her work with opposition groups at the council and concluded by telling her colleagues: “Making the most of opportunities is what Conservatives have always been about. But not all the answers to the questions we face can be found in this chamber, and we have to realise that Wokingham Borough is not the best at everything.

“We need to be a learning council with a new and inquisitive culture…we the members, are not always the target demographic for our policies and sometimes we need to walk in other people’s shoes to see the world as they see it.

“I am striving for a politics where the majority understand and respect our aims, where the resident is at the heart of what we do, and where the citizen feels empowered, not disenfranchised in their dealings with us.”

Cllr Haitham Taylor thanked her deputy, Cllr Pauline Jorgensen, who in turn said: “I would like to thank Charlotte for all her work on behalf of residents of Wokingham Borough.

“I personally have really enjoyed working with her and admire her grit and determination and her passion for helping the most disadvantaged of our residents.”

Opposition leader Cllr Lindsay Ferris said: “Charlotte and I have worked together on a number of issues, where in the past it was often not possible to get any sort of agreement.”