IT has been a controversial year for Widnes and Runcorn's local council.

2019 has seen Halton Council defeated twice in the courts and criticised over decisions on planning and the sponsorship of Halton Stadium while the local authority stares down the barrel of a £6 million budget deficit.

Some even suggested the borough was turning into the "dustbin of the North West" during a series of particularly heated meetings over waste plants.

It wasn’t all bad – the council has also brought forward its plans for a multi-million pound investment in the regeneration of Runcorn town centre – but as a difficult year draws to a close, we look back on some of the biggest rows of 2019.

'Dustbin of the North West'

The council's year got off to a rocky start with a series of arguments about rubbish.

At the authority’s first meeting of 2019, councillors approved plans for a waste treatment plant in Hale Bank, leading some residents to claim the borough was turning into “the dustbin of the North West”.

The plans, which one resident described as a “kick in the teeth” for a former industrial area that had grown from "nothing" into a tight-knit residential community, would have seen 85,000 tonnes of rubbish processed each year on the banks of the Mersey.

Just a month later, residents on the other side of the river were enraged as the granted permission for Viridor's Runcorn incinerator to increase the amount of waste it burned.

Members of the public stormed out of a meeting at Runcorn town hall with shouts of "shame", "disgrace"  as councillors approved the plans to expand operations at the incinerator, blamed for generating the vomit-inducing smells that plague its neighbours.

The decision to allow Viridor to burn more waste at Runcorn would come back to bite the council’s dominant Labour group at the local elections in May as the party was defeated by the Liberal Democrats in Heath ward, which covers the area affected by the plant.

Local Lib Dem leader Cllr Chris Rowe said the incinerator had been "a big factor" in his party's victory.

The council then suffered a further reversal in October as the High Court quashed its decision to approve the waste treatment plant at Hale Bank.

In a judicial review sought by Hale Bank Parish Council, Mrs Justice Lieven ruled Halton Council had failed to provide key documents or adequately explain its reasons for granting permission when the site was not included in Merseyside's Joint Waste Management Development Plan (JWDP).

"The [council] members were therefore not in a position to make up their own minds," she said.

Parish council chairman Kieran Reed said the court's judgment showed Halton Council's planning department was "not fit for purpose" and called for the local authority to be stripped of its planning powers.

Court defeat over black cabs cap

The council had also had court trouble in July over a policy restricting the number of black cabs operating in the borough to 267.

That limit was based on a survey of demand for taxis thought to have been carried out in 1985, but when pressed the council could not explain what justified the figure or even prove that the survey had in fact been carried out.

The cap led to a long-running dispute between the council and John Roberts, the owner of Frodsham & District Taxis, who had been denied 13 licences to operate in the area when he applied last year.

That dispute finally came to a head at Chester Crown Court on July 4, when a judge ruled the council had failed to show that the cap was justified or 267 was an appropriate number.

The council is now undertaking a new survey of unmet demand which is expected to be completed next year.

Finances looking 'scary'

A long-simmering problem threatened to boil over towards the end of the year as the council announced it was halting all non-essential spending in the face of a projected £6 million budget deficit.

With only £5 million left in reserves and more cuts to come next year, executive member for resources Cllr Mike Wharton said the council's finances were "clearly of great concern" while chief finance officer Ed Dawson said its position was "scary".

The problem is not entirely of the council's own making – it has been squeezed between huge budget cuts from Westminster and rising demand for social care – but some decisions did raise eyebrows this year.

In March, as council leaders laid out a grim financial picture for the year ahead, opposition groups criticised them for refusing to discuss a cut in councillor allowances.

In particular, Lib Dem leader Chris Rowe took aim at the allowances given to committee vice chairs, which had been identified as "disproportionate" by the council's independent remuneration panel.

After a row in the council chamber, council leader Richard Polhill said he was willing to have a discussion about the contentious vice chair's allowance in the future – but said that the full council meeting was not the time or the place for it.

Stadium sponsorship row brings resignation

The year ended as it begun – with an argument.

This one broke out after news emerged that the council had signed a deal with Runcorn-based bailiffs DCBL to sponsor the local authority-owned stadium in Widnes.

Even before the deal was officially announced, Kingsway councillor Andrea Wall resigned in protest from her position as executive board member without portfolio.

She said: "I have worked for years trying to help people in poverty and if this deal continues, I will continue to call it the Halton or Widnes Stadium and refuse to recognise any new name as a result of this deal."

DCBL, made famous by Channel 5 show Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away, was surprised by the backlash, with CEO Gary Robinson saying: "I thought I was putting a bit back into the community.

"I thought I was helping the community, helping the Widnes Vikings."

Cllr Wall declined an offer from Mr Robinson to meet and discuss her concerns, but for now, the deal seems set in stone.