Tories today launched a last-ditch drive to get plans for Bradford Council's radical shake up shelved.

They say the Council should take more time over the move and consult the public properly before it is made.

The Tories will ask the Council's Chief Executive Ian Stewart to defer a special meeting on September 14, when a decision to change to a Westminster-type cabinet is expected to go through.

A new model where executive councillors would sit on a cabinet and eventually make major decisions for the district will go to the Labour group for approval in the week before the Council meeting.

The cabinet may meet in secret, in line with Leeds, where the press are excluded.

But some authorities now operating cabinet systems open them to the public.

Once the decision to go for a cabinet has gone through questionnaires will be sent out asking the public how it should be set up and run.

But today leader of the Council's minority Tory group Councillor Margaret Eaton said: "Bradford Council is already secretive- and now it wants to make it official. This is like offering people a choice of a new car as long as it's a Lada, but they can choose their own seat covers.

"This decision will define the way the Council is run for the next 20 years or more. Why not take a little time to choose the model most people want?"

The Council's Labour leader Councillor Ian Greenwood has already said the cabinet would be an interim model until the bill which will require all councils to modernise becomes law next year.

Other options put forward by the Government are for a mayor directly-elected by the people working either with a cabinet or manager. The Government is strongly in favour of elected mayors.

But those options will not be put to the public in the questionnaires they will receive next month. They will only be consulted on the cabinet.

Mr Stewart says their views will be taken into account at a Council meeting in October, when the make up and operation of the cabinet will be agreed. The new system is expected to start operating in January

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