The former leader of Cheshire East Council has hit back at political opposition, following his resignation.

Labour Cheshire East Councillor Sam Corcoran (Sandbach Heath and East) had led Macclesfield's largest form of local government since May 22 2019.

But he resigned last Wednesday, and was replaced by new Cheshire East leader Nick Mannion (Macclesfield West and Ivy).

Following on from his resignation speech, Mr Corcoran has released this statement: "The Conservatives cannot get over the fact that I exposed the corruption and bullying culture at the council when they were in charge," he said.

"What really annoys them is that the independent Public Interest Report 2014-18 published in 2023 confirmed all that I had said. (If anything the situation was worse than I had said, with shouting, swearing and spittle flying being regarded as normal.) Since I took over as Leader in 2019 things have changed.

"All the police investigations have been completed – there are now no police investigations into the council.

"The recent OFSTED report said that staff enjoy working at Cheshire East Council. The Local Government Association reported in 2020 on a 'transformed' culture and the 2024 report says that now is the time to move on.

"On the finances, the local Conservatives left a council with very low reserves – only £10M in 2019. By 2023 this had been increased under my leadership to £14M. The lack of government funding made 2023/24 a very difficult year for all councils with unfunded increases in social care costs – and in Cheshire East Council's case the write off of £8.6M of costs relating to HS2 coming to Crewe.

"The Conservative government underfunded councils and the £100M to be found over 4 years in the transformation programme that Cheshire East Council is putting forward is not unusual – Derbyshire County Council are showing service pressures of over £50M in this year alone.

"I hoped that my resignation would have enabled the local Conservatives to move on from personal abuse and take an active role in positively scrutinising the actions the Labour-Independent administration, as a good opposition should. If the Conservatives don't change their culture then Robert Jenrick's prediction that things could get worse for the Tories could well be proved right.

"The next local elections are in 2027 and if the Conservatives go to the electorate with the same people who oversaw a bullying culture in 2014-18 then they could be wiped out."

Cheshire East's Conservative group leader, Janet Clowes, previously told Nub News why she thought Cllr Corcoran had to resign from Cheshire East Council leader.

Mr Corcoran will continue to serve as a Cheshire East and Sandbach Town Councillor.

He is not the only recent resignation at the Council, as earlier this week, another person resigned in a different position. Please click HERE to read that story.