WORCESTER'S Labour Party has made a last-ditch plea for the Greens to help them run the city council - by teaming up to kick the Conservatives from office.

The tense negotiations about who controls Worcester City Council took another dramatic twist this weekend after Labour released a statement late last night urging the Green Party to perform a u-turn and strike a deal.

We can reveal:

- Councillor Marc Bayliss, the council's Tory leader, has reacted with frustration to Labour's stance by accusing them of trying to "love bomb" the Greens to avoid a three-party deal

- Amid growing concerns about the deadlock, city council officers are due to "facilitate" crunch talks between all three parties at the Guildhall from 9.30am tomorrow

- Labour group leader Councillor Adrian Gregson has insisted a Labour-Green deal is the best way forward, saying a "clear majority" of voters in the elections backed a "difference of approach" from the current Tory rule

- The Labour Party, which held private talks with branch members yesterday, has appeared to scorch any hopes of a Tory-Lab-Green deal by directly attacking the city's Conservative leadership and its policies

The news comes after the Worcester News exclusively revealed how Green Party chairman Louis Stephen published an open letter insisting he will "not do a Coalition deal with any single party."

That led to Councillor Bayliss saying he was prepared to replace half his cabinet with Labour politicians and include a Green in it to create a remarkable 'Rainbow Coalition' for the first time ever in Worcester.

But the Labour Party has pointed to some core Tory policies being ones they cannot support, citing the proposal to outsource bin collections, street sweeping and park maintenance by 2017 as one.

The Conservatives are intent on pushing that through in a bid to save around £400,000 a year by this September.

Labour, which has 16 city councillors compared to 17 Conservative and two Greens, has also reiterated its stance on Worcester City FC getting to Perdiswell.

Councillor Gregson's statement said: "With Labour winning the largest share of the vote at the city council elections - 36% and the Greens a further 15.6%, a clear majority of those who voted did so for the difference of approach represented by Labour and the Greens.

"Having looked closely at our policies and the Green Party's, we are struck by the level of agreement on issues such as the need for more affordable housing, tighter controls and better standards in private sector accomodation, improving air quality, promoting energy efficiency and engaging with local communities to enable them to have more say in decisions that affect them.

"And we both agree on the need to stop the privatisation of the city's cleaner and greener policy (to outsource bin collections, street sweeping and park maintenance from this September).

"We believe we owe it to our voters to work for a solution that allows us to pursue the policies set out in our manifesto, particularly bringing Worcester City FC back to Worcester and stopping the privatisation of the cleaner and greener service.

"We recognise that locating Worcester City FC at Perdiswell presents problems for the Conservatives and the Greens because they both believe they would lose an election if they were to support it.

"We would call on them to rise above their own partisan interests, think about the city as a whole and, assuming planning permission is granted, back the club establishing its home at Perdiswell.

"We have always questioned the need to privatise the city's excellent and efficient cleaner and greener from when the idea was first launched by the Conservatives.

"We have never believed that the savings project could be made.

"Cllr Bayliss has consistently defended his decision to press ahead, has blocked Labour's attempts to reveal the true facts and remains in denial about the wisdom of continuing the flawed process of outsourcing this essential city council service.

"This privatisation must be stopped and we would stop it on day one, given the opportunity to do so.

"We welcome the Greens' proposal to take the politics out of the mayorality by appointing the Mayor on the basis of seniority and, in keeping with that sentiment, we will be proposing Paul Denham for Mayor on Tuesday.

"Meanwhile, we are committed to talks on Monday to find the best way to reflect the wishes of the voters as well as reconciling any differences we may have between us in terms of approach to the governance of our city and the policies we wish to see implemented."

The stance has led to a frustrated Councillor Bayliss reiterating his desire for a joint deal.

"I don't think this has taken us any further forward, it's clearly an attempt to 'love bomb' the Greens before saying they hope to engage in more negotiations, he said.

"I assume they mean all-party ones - Labour has got to be more grown up about the way they are approaching this, it's almost as if they have forgotten they have 16 councillors and are a minority, as are we with 17 councillors.

"I am prepared to put all my personal feelings aside and still hope Labour are willing to negotiate, so we can run the city with all parties involved.

"You can't ignore the reality of what happened at the elections."

A new administration is due to be formed at the Annual Council meeting on Tuesday.

* EXCLUSIVE: Worcester Green Party's extraordinary open letter calling for a Tory-Labour-Green power sharing Coalition