A Labour councillor has resigned suddenly from her position on the district council.

The shock announcement that Cllr Karen Constantine, who represents Ramsgate, would be standing down from Thanet District Council was made at a full council meeting last night.

Cllr Constantine, who was not at the meeting, represents Newington and also sits on Kent County Council for Ramsgate.

She fought for a seat on Thanet council in 2015, but lost in the UKIP landslide. Months later, due to changes on the council, she was able to stand again and won with an 8% swing to Labour.

Cllr Constantine has been pushing to save acute stroke services at the QEQM hospital in Margate and supported two judicial reviews in December, the outcome of which is yet to be announced.

She has also campaigned for action on housing, jobs, better wages, education and health.

She has been asked for a comment on why she has resigned.

Her sudden departure came as councillors nodded through the budget for 2020/21, which includes a new climate change officer, 10 new staff for street cleaning, £400k in helping tackle homelessness and plans to build 40 new council homes.

Multiple public toilets will also be refurbished and some £14.5 million will be spent upgrading tower blocks in the district.

All 21 Conservative members abstained from voting due to the rise in council rents, although affordable rents will be frozen.

Labour defended the £2.41 weekly increase per property, stating most would not be affected as the majority of the cost would be covered by housing benefit or Universal Credit.

The rise is from the government's housing rent policy which stipulates an increase of Consumer Prices Index (CPI) plus 1% for council tenants.

Deputy council leader Cllr Helen Whitehead (Lab) said the rise was not a decision they had taken lightly, pointing out there has been a freeze in terms of the council's revenue account for four years making it difficult to deal with the council housing list.

"There are 2,500 people waiting for accommodation at this point," she said.

"We need to break the cycle of homelessness. We need to make sure people aren't being forced into insecure tenancies in private accommodation.

"The way we do this is to keep rents as low as possible but make sure we use income to secure housing for people."

But Cllr Phil Fellows (Con) said a large proportion of tenants would feel the full affects of the rent increases.

"I see dozens of people struggling on a daily basis," he added.

Labour members, Greens, Thanet Independent group and independent member Cllr Ruth Bailey voted to approve the budget, which includes an increase of £4.95 for the authority's element of council tax.

For an average Band D property this equates to a weekly increase of less than 10p per week.

Thanet council has £17.1 million to fund services for the next 12 months and the budget will be implemented on April 1.

Cabinet member for financial services, Cllr Rob Yates, said he hopes the budget addresses the needs of residents while investing further in council activities and putting in place a plan for growth in public services.

"Thanet council has had the largest fall in spending power over the last 10 years, compared with every council in Kent," he said.

"We now have only 62% of the spending power that we had back in 2010.

"Within this budget we are fixing health and safety problems in our housing stock, building at least 40 new council houses, investing in a new housing company to bring new properties to the market, introducing 10 new environmental operatives to improve street cleansing, increasing levels of recycling, refurbishing public toilets, increasing council tax on long term empty homes and introducing a climate change officer post.

"We hope this budget will mean that in years to come we will be in a better place to meet the many demands of the most important people in Thanet, the residents."

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