A GREEN councillor has slammed Tory proposals for a £200,000 "monarchist statue" to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee.

Conservatives want to put £70,000 towards celebrations for the Platinum Jubilee, including £7,000 in recurrent funding to commission a statue to commemorate the Queen and her 70 years as monarch.

Green co-finance lead Councillor David Gibson criticised the plans - part of proposed amendments to Brighton and Hove's City Council budget - saying it would divert already stretched resources.

He said: "With the cost of living soaring, and residents facing an estimated 50 per cent increase to their energy bills as soon as April, and cuts to the council's budget over the last ten years, residents need the council to spend stretched resources on public services.

"These are the very parts of the council that help our most marginalised residents, that prevent spiralling climate chaos, tackle graffiti and improve recycling.

"Our latest budget proposals do exactly this - rather than make cuts to fund a statue."

The Conservatives proposed reducing the revenue budget contribution to the city-wide transport model by £76,000 for two years, as well as re-allocating almost a third of funding to a tech reuse and recycling scheme and £40,000 earmarked for increasing the supply of allotments - to instead be funded from the council's Carbon Neutral 2030 Fund.

Cllr Gibson said if there is an appetite for a statue to commemorate the Platinum Jubilee from the Conservatives, there are other ways to fund such a project - including bids for arts council funding and public subscription opportunities.

He said: "This would be better than the current Tory plan which cuts local services like Tech Takeback - that donates recycled electrical goods to community groups - to pay for it."

Conservative finance spokesman Councillor Joe Miller said that a statue commemorating the Queen and the Jubilee would help "mark the moment, so that residents in the future will be able to see how we marked the historic first-ever Platinum Jubilee in Brighton and Hove".

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