THERE is outrage at Worcestershire County Council's decision to spend £150,000 on refurbishing rooms at its headquarters.

The money will be spent improving members' rooms at County Hall as part of £3.8 million of improvements to the whole building, decided upon last year.

The ruling Conservative group claims the improvements are long overdue, with the building relatively untouched since it was built in 1970. The Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties all have members' rooms where councillors from each group can meet and talk politics in private.

The rooms are closely guarded - and are not open to members of the public or even county council staff.

All three parties are set to benefit, with Labour and the Lib Dems getting new rooms, while the Conservative group is getting a bigger room.

Once the current Liberal Democrat and Labour rooms become defunct, they will be turned into lounges.

But the controlling Tory group has been accused of "gross indulgence".

Councillor Tom Wells, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: "It's an outrageous waste of money. Why are we spending this amount of money on councillors when there is nothing wrong with the rooms at the moment?

"I see no obvious benefit at all, and I think that it is horribly self-indulgent.

"We accepted the plan at the start because we were told there was a shortage of office space, but it turns out the old members' rooms will be turned into lounges."

All three of the political groups have been told that their current members' rooms will be out of use from July, with the new ones available in September. Coun John Buckley, leader of the Labour group, said: "We were against the principle of spending money on the members' rooms while we have difficulties in funding frontline services, and, frankly, are quite happy with the current room."

Coun Adrian Hardman, cabinet member for finance at County Hall, defended the move by saying new rooms for the parties are long overdue.