LIBERAL Democrats have accused Winchester's Conservative leaders of having "woolly" and unmeasurable plans for the district.

Opposition councillors claimed performance was dropping in key areas and was not being monitored, drawing swift rebuttal from the Tory benches.

Council leader Cllr Stephen Godfrey branded the remarks by senior Lib Dem Cllr Martin Tod as "uninformed" and "inaccurate".

The clash came during a debate on the plans of each cabinet member for 2016/17, on issues ranging from housing and tourism to bin collection and transport.

Cllr Tod described the pledges as vague and woolly.

He said: "There's some real issues that aren't being addressed by these plans: that the cabinet is not always up to speed with monitoring their performance and how they're doing, that in many areas performance is inadequate and attempts to address these gaps in performance are missing."

Cllr Tod also pointed out that statistics on the council website regarding complaints were two years out of date. They have been updated since the meeting.

Conservative councillor Linda Gemmell, also a scrutiny committee member, said: "The plans that we've got here, they're not perfect and they haven't got everything.

"But as an actual indication of who is responsible for what area, it's miles ahead of when I joined the council.

"This actually gives you where they are, they give you concise information, they're clear, they're measurable."

The plans were approved by 30 votes to 15. The council's overview and scrutiny committee, controversially given a Conservative majority after last year's election, did not oppose the strategy.

Lib Dem group leader Cllr Lucille Thompson criticised Cllr Godfrey, her Tory counterpart, for declining to support a review of the scrutiny process.

Cllr Godfrey pointed out that scrutiny is independent of the administration.