SHEPWAY Council’s leader will be asked to resign after a series of hugely unpopular decisions. Cllr Linda Cufley’s head is on the block as confidence in the local authority is at an all time low.

Members of the Liberal Democrat party in Shepway, her own group, want her to take responsibility for decisions which saw all the district’s public toilets close and grass verges grow out of control, after the budget to trim them was cut.

There is to be a vote of no confidence in the leader at a Lib Dem group meeting on Thursday. The call comes after Cllr John Hughes resigned from Shepway’s cabinet.

He said: “I am sad that this day has come, but I truly feel that the current leadership has lost touch with local people.”

He is being backed by Peter Carroll, the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Folkestone and Hythe, the challenger to MP Michael Howard’s constituency seat.

He said: “I am not happy. There has to be a fundamental change in the way the council is being led. The current leadership was handed a very difficult scenario after the previous Conservative administration left behind a financial disaster.

“But you can do a difficult job well or badly and I do not think it has been done well. If you are captain of the ship and things go wrong you have to take responsibility for that.”

However, Cllr Linda Cufley said she refused to take the blame.

She said: “The cabinet makes collective decisions and up until his resignation Cllr Hughes was part of this decision-making process. In fact, public toilets and grass cutting were part of his portfolio as cabinet member for public space and safety.

“None of us is happy with some of the decisions we’ve had to make as a result of the capping situation. But we can’t keep everyone happy. We made decisions which seemed to be the right way to go at the time.”