Worcester City Council has appointed joint leaders for the first time, despite one of the parties involved not initially supporting the approach.
Lynn Denham (Lab) and Marjory Bissett (Green) took up the roles this week. Their parties are now the two largest on the council, which is under no overall control.
Cllr Bissett told LGC that under the country’s largely binary political system, “if you're a smaller party, it's quite hard to maintain your position…you have to vote with one of the large parties”.
“By having joint leadership, we were trying to keep ourselves separate and distinct from either Labour or Conservative,” she explained.
Cllr Bissett said she was “reasonably optimistic” about the arrangements despite Labour not supporting the principle of joint leaders.
“I like and respect Lynn, and get on well with her,” she said. “And I have confidence that she'll be able to put what happened on Tuesday behind her and work together with me for the benefit of the residents of Worcester.”