At the first council meeting of the year at the White Rock Theatre on Wednesday, councillors voted 17 to 16 to reduce the size of the cabinet to six, all made up of tory councillors.

The move comes despite it being a hung council, with the three Liberal Democrat councillors joining forces with the 13-strong Labour party to vote against the motion, independent Cllr Stephen Springthorpe siding with the 15 conservatives, and tory Mayor Maureen Charlesworth taking the deciding vote.

The Labour party put forward an ammendment for the cabinet to be made up of four conservatives, four labour and one lib dem, which was also voted against.

Council leader Peter Pragnell was re-elected, and his deputy is now Cllr Matthew Beaver.

Putting forward the ammendent, labour leader Cllr Jeremy Birch said: "As we are a hung council, I think it is totally inappropriate to return to a one-party cabinet. It's not a matter of numbers, it's a matter of policies."

Supporting the ammendment, lib dem leader Cllr Richard Stevens said: "The Conservative party are wanting to ditch the rest of us.
"50 per cent of the electorate would be excluded and that cannot be justified."

And labour Cllr Godfrey Daniel said: "We would like to see a balanced cabinet. This is not Zimbabwe, this is Hastings."

In response to the claims, tory Cllr Peter Finch said: "This is sour grapes.".

The cabinet is now made up of Cllr Pragnell, Cllr Beaver, Cllr Finch, Cllr Robert Cooke, Cllr Matthew Lock, and Cllr Roy Tucker.