A Coalville county councillor has described the Ivanhoe Line as 'likely buried forever' in an attack on the current Labour government.

Cllr Craig Smith was speaking at Wednesday's meeting of Leicestershire County Council meeting where a Conservative motion to oppose the Chancellor's recent Budget was passed.

As the Tory candidate for North West Leicestershire at July's General Election, Cllr Smith narrowly lost out to Labour's Amanda Hack.

Since then, he has been a vocal opponent to the policies announced by Labour in the months since the vote.

At Wednesday's meeting, Cllr Smith gave a detailed speech in support of the motion.

He made reference to the Ivanhoe Line - the rail route which was intended to run from Coalville to Derby and had made encouraging progress before funding was withdrawn shortly after the election.

Cllr Smith said: "In my division of Coalville North, it's been particularly badly bruised with the cancellation of funding to re-open the Ivanhoe Line, a project that had reached the brink of success under the previous government's Restoring Our Railways Programme. 

"Local politicians of all parties, alongside campaigners, have worked tirelessly to bring this project to fruition. 

"Labour's decision to pull the funding has, at best, set the project back by years, but more than likely buried it forever. 

"This is a portrayal of my community's efforts as a direct attack on connectivity, opportunity and progress for North West Leicestershire.

"Now I do note and welcome that the new Labour MPs for North West Leicestershire and South Derbyshire are lobbying their government, their own government, to come up with a new pot of funding. 

"But that's not sugar coating it. 

"That's like praising the driver who just ran you over, for stopping to see if you're still alive. 

"Labour claims that they want to drive economic growth, but their actions tell a very, very different story, from skyrocketing taxes to stifling investments, hammering local services and businesses, crippling family farms, threatening the nation's food security, they are plunging our country into stagnation and despair."

Cllr Smith also offered other opinions on Labour's actions since moving into Downing Street.

He added: "I rise to express my deep concern and frustration at this Labour government's reckless mismanagement, which is leaving our country, our communities and our constituents worse off. 

"Their first budget since 2010 has delivered its largest tax increase in history, 40 billion pounds worth of additional taxation - this isn't a bad budget. It's a betrayal."

He said that changes in National Insurance policies would "add £20million pounds to this Council's cost".

Cllr Smith added: "That's £20million pounds diverted away from delivering the services to our residents.

"And then we have the family farm tax by imposing 20 per cent inheritance tax on farm holdings over a million pounds.

"This council must do everything that it can to demand that the Government reverses these tax increases, scraps the family farm, tax compensates councils fairly for these punitive costs and restores funding for the Ivanhoe Line."

However, Liberal Democrat councillor Stuart Bray said: "I do support some aspects of the motion, but some of the speeches here are hard to take.

"There seems to have been an outbreak of amnesia from the party of Liz Truss since July 4."

But Cllr Keith Merrie, representing Coalville South, added: "Never in the field of government has so much damage been done to UK economy, in such a short period of time, by so few politicians and I support the motion. Thank you."