AN INDEPENDENT councillor has quit her pact with the Conservatives on Oxfordshire County Council ahead of a controversial vote on £69m of cuts.

Lynda Atkins this morning told the Oxford Mail she would instead be voting with the Labour Group, which has put forward alternative plans that "offer more hope to people in Oxfordshire".

Her resignation is a blow to the council's Tory administration because it relies on a wafer-thin majority at County Hall, with a crucial vote on budget plans scheduled tomorrow.

Ms Atkins said: "I have thought long and hard about this and looked at all the alternative proposals that were submitted on Friday over the weekend.

"It seems to me that the Labour plan offers more hope to people in Oxfordshire than those put forward by the Conservatives."

The Conservatives won 31 out of 63 seats on the council in a 2013 election. Group leader Ian Hudspeth said the alliance with three independent councillors would ensure a "stable administration".

That stability could now be threatened. Ms Atkins' independent colleague Mark Gray has said he remains "undecided" on how he will vote tomorrow and Councillor Les Sibley has so far been unavailable for comment.

The Conservatives only need one independent councillor to back them to maintain a majority of one. But if all opposition councillors and all the independents vote the same way they could achieve a majority of one instead.