I’m pleased that after months of debate, deadlock and no doubt a great deal of anger and frustration on the part of residents the council was able to set a budget based around a sensible and affordable 1.99% increase.

It’s the same as residents of Conservative-controlled East Sussex will pay but funding for community grants and respite care for disabled children will be protected.

It is worrying that the Conservatives on the council refused to vote for the budget. At no stage were they willing to compromise.

Branding the increase as “dangerously left wing” (even though it has been adopted by dozens of Tory councils elsewhere) and appearing happy to abandon control of services, should be of great concern to residents, as should the Tories’ eagerness to support a £36 million loan to the i360 project, which their own local MP said was “a financial black hole”.

The local Tory leader calls me “Councillor No” for opposing the i360, further cuts and plans to privatise council services. It’s a badge I wear with pride.

Councillor Warren Morgan, East Brighton ward, leader of the Labour and Co-operative group