TOP councillors are being accused of neglecting crime and safety issues in York, leading to a "catalogue of disasters".

A motion to go before City of York Council next week claims the ruling Liberal Democrats failed to fulfil their manifesto pledges over the past four years.

Labour councillor Ruth Potter, who is tabling the motion, said: "I am taking this motion to council because local Labour believe the Lib Dems have shown a worrying lack of commitment to tackling crime and safety issues in this city over the last four years, despite it being one of their main election pledges in 2003."

Coun Potter said evidence for the Lib Dems' "lack of commitment" included:

* Cutbacks to the multi-agency crime reduction group Safer York Partnership (SYP) budget * Long-term delays in resolving the issues over the future chair of the SYP board, management of the senior staff, and effective integration of the drugs advisory team* Repeated rejection of the advice of the chief executive to fund a safe city co-ordinator* Failure of the council-chaired antisocial behaviour task group to function properly for nearly two years* The council's neighbourhood pride unit not supporting the full roll out of joint action groups after a successful pilot* The long delays in repairing and then modernising the city-centre CCTV system, and voting against extra CCTV in city centre to cover violence hotspots, and for extra staff to provide adequate weekend night-time monitoring and resilience* Inadequate funding of the youth offending team* Inadequate funding arrangements for the alleygating initiativeFellow Labour councillor Brian Watson, who is seconding the motion, said: "It has been a catalogue of disaster from beginning to end.

"They have cut back the SYP budget and the Lib Dems have only managed to gate 16 alleys out of a proposed 276 in nearly four years.

"Their alley-gating scheme has been disastrous and if Labour wards had not found money from our ward committee budgets along with Home Office money obtained by SYP to pay for these gates, there would have even fewer done."

Lib Dem leader Steve Galloway said: "It seems strange that the Labour group should seek to highlight apparent failings in the SYP organisation when they have two councillors (Merrett and Potter) on its management board compared to only one Liberal Democrat."

He said investments included extended CCTV coverage, community ranger patrols, additional police community support officer patrols commissioned by the council, and police community surgeries.

On alleygating, he said: "Funding for the gates has been made available but their installation rate has reflected the pace dictated by local consultation arrangements and the limitations placed on the process by central Government legislation."