IT’S spend, spend, spend at Conservative controlled BCP Council – although an extra £5 million for climate change has been turned down.

A four-hour evening meeting on Tuesday saw approvals of £31m for new lorries and refuse vehicles, some of them electric, the go ahead for 161 flats at Carters Quay in Poole with undisclosed costs, and a decision which will see the council borrow more – possibly an extra £200m – for a range of projects.

Councillors were told the authority was near the bottom of the borrowing league for authorities of its size and could take on more debt at historic low rates – provided there was a business case for doing so.

But when opposition councillors suggested switching an unallocated £5m into Cllr Mike Greene’s climate and ecological change budget, cabinet members, including Cllr Greene, voted the cash transfer down saying they shouldn’t make such big decisions ‘on the hoof’.

They said they already had plans, yet to be announced, to increase climate change funding.

A further £2.5m was set aside as a contingency should it be needed to deal with further Covid outbreaks

The meeting, peppered with political point-scoring, also saw a sturdy defence for offering a £70,000 grant to bring the Hurn lagoon project to the planning stage and the revelation that other foster carers might also have been the subject of injustice in the past and also liable for compensation which has recently resulted in a £50,000 pay-out.

A sum of £292,000 was also approved during the evening to bring about change in the system which helps families who have children needing additional support because of education or medical need – the result of a  critical Ofsted report in August. Further sums ranging from £220,000 to £156,000 were also agreed in principle for the years ahead until 2024/25.

Council leader Drew Mellor told the meeting that many of the spending decisions were to invest in the area’s future – part of his administration’s "big plan". He said the Tory team was showing the courage and will to invest rather than sit on its hands and not make decisions.

He said an example of this was reversing the previous administration’s £240,000 cut to the climate change budget, doubling it, taking on extra staff to deal with the issues and also intending to keep the £480,000 climate cash in the budget year after year.

Opposition councillors described the claim as ‘spin’ and said they had only temporarily removed the climate money during their time in power to deal with the Covid pandemic and also had plans to increase the climate budget year on year had they remained in power.

Several expressed concerns about the accuracy of the financial projections for the Carters Quay investment and doubted the £40m profit the Conservative group claim it will generate over 50 years.