CDU city councillor Dr Sabine Heymann spoke of a “somewhat shameful memory that tugs at the heartstrings” at the council meeting on 2 September: The topic was the memorial to the victims of tyranny at Leipzig’s Südfriedhof – a special place, yet one that has long been relegated to an undignified existence on the edge […]
At the July meeting of the City Council, the proposal regarding the possible sale of the small wood on Capastraße had to be postponed. The protest was too vocal. And many councillors in the city council also frowned upon the proposal, as this project, put forward by the Property Office, would see Leipzig undermine several […]
The scorching summer of 2026 showed everyone in Leipzig where global warming is heading. And just how ill-prepared the city of Leipzig actually is for such high temperatures of around 40 degrees. Naturally, the Left Party group on Leipzig City Council wanted to know what the city was now investing in to protect against the […]
Leipzig is growing. Even now, at a time when the Free State of Saxony is once again forecasting a decline in population figures. There are many reasons for this. Young people, in particular, are moving into the city. But this has consequences for the housing market – an issue that has now also caught the […]
Sven Morlok has been a member of Leipzig City Council again since 2014, having previously represented the FDP there from 2004 to 2009. In the intervening years, he was a member of the Saxon State Parliament and a minister in the Free State’s government. He understands the formalities of council work like no other and […]
It was to be expected that this would cause trouble once again. It’s only to be expected when a city, under massive pressure from a budget that has spiralled out of control, is forced to cut 500 jobs. And to do so within a very, very short timeframe, in order to have any impact at […]
Thousands of households in Leipzig are looking for an affordable flat and are simply unable to find one at present. One way of alleviating the housing shortage to some extent would, of course, be to put the residential buildings in Leipzig – of which there are by no means a few – that have stood […]
At this final presentation on 2 September, Mayor Burkhard Jung, who was chairing the meeting, was clearly running out of steam too. This proposal concerned Development Plan No. 451.1 ‘Semmelweisstraße/An den Tierkliniken, Northern Section’, i.e. the entire area around Semmelweisstraße and the Kohlrabizirkus. It is, in fact, an area lacking in liveability, which has been […]
The headline refers to the time it took for the city council to discuss and vote on a proposal that had been drawn up with broad participation from the city’s community. A section of Georg-Schumann-Straße in Leipzig, between Chausseehaus and Böhmestraße – approximately 600 metres in length – is to be upgraded. As part of […]
How long does it actually take to clear the huge backlog of housing benefit applications in Leipzig? By 2023, the processing time for housing benefit applications had already risen to half a year. The city itself now puts the figure at nine months. And this naturally raises the question – one which was, of course, […]
It was, in fact, to be expected that this motion would provide an opportunity for an AfD city councillor such as Roland Ulbrich to once again use his speaking time to rail against democracy projects and NGOs. And that a CDU city councillor, too, would feel targeted was also to be expected. For it was […]
Fighting for two trees – is it worth it? Two 80-year-old maple trees on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz, right next to the Bowlingtreff, in front of the future Natural History Museum. All Leipzig residents experienced just how valuable the city’s natural green spaces are during the heatwave in June and July. The city needs green spaces. Far more […]
It could have been so simple if all the parties represented on Leipzig City Council, as well as the city administration, were to work and debate in a proper manner. Often, however, this does not happen; pointless discussions take place simply to put forward views that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. […]
Anyone wishing to view the full presentation of the draft for Leipzig’s 2027/2028 two-year budget for themselves can now do so. Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, Mayor Burkhard Jung and Ulrich Hörning, the mayor responsible for administration, to the presentation of this budget package – which has truly been forged through sweat and […]
Ahead of the forthcoming council meeting on 2 September, Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, has tabled a proposal to amend the by-laws governing the accommodation tax. The proposal essentially concerns only the option to submit tax returns electronically. However, the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen parliamentary group felt that, since a decision on amending the […]
The taxi industry in Leipzig is also suffering from rising fuel prices. Since the last survey in 2022, the situation has deteriorated drastically. And so the proposal on fares in the Leipzig taxi industry, which came before the city council on 2 July, was long overdue. The minimum wage for taxi drivers, which has been […]
This concern was only too understandable, given that during the last elections Leipzig seemed to be literally drowning in a deluge of election posters. Many poles were covered from top to bottom. Some parties covered entire streets with their posters. And many posters were already lying torn to shreds on the grass after just a […]
Just a few years ago, the city council was still debating whether Leipzig should introduce a tourist accommodation tax or not. Now, everyone is pleased that the city can raise additional funds from it, which in turn benefit tourism. But who exactly? From the city’s point of view, the City Council’s Economic Committee has sufficient […]
Ultimately, it always comes down to acceptance. This is true of the energy transition too. All the more so when two districts of Leipzig – Hartmannsdorf and Knautnaundorf – are particularly affected within their local areas, as it is primarily here that Leipzig’s wind power capacity is being expanded. They then find themselves with significantly […]
It was to be expected that there would be a commotion over this agenda item at the council meeting on 2 July. Die-hard patriarchs simply cannot help but shout out and vociferously express their old-fashioned displeasure. They have internalised patriarchy. And so it did indeed get noisy in the city council when the motion ‘Proposal […]
On 2 July, a question was also raised at the council meeting regarding the call that the Left Party group has been persistently raising since August 2025. And, in fact, Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, had intended to provide a comprehensive answer to this question this July. However, since his department has been […]
At the council meeting on 2 July, there was a minor first. Until now, when it came to questions from the city council, it had generally been the political groups themselves who were given the floor and were able to use the time to put further oral questions to the relevant mayors regarding their original […]
On 1 January 2026, the dog licence regulations for Leipzig – which had been adopted in December – came into force. They had been the subject of heated debate, partly because the city had a keen interest in microchipping as many dogs registered in Leipzig as possible, so that tax collection could be carried out […]
Will the “Kino der Jugend” on Eisenbahnstraße now falter at the final hurdle due to German bureaucracy and a Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) who insists on sticking to deadlines, after a solution to the Gordian knot had seemed to be in sight this spring? For it was then that the […]
The Left Party had got off to such an enthusiastic start with its ‘rent profiteering’ app. Over 6,000 suspected cases of completely exorbitant rents have already been recorded in Leipzig using the app. It would then, in theory, be straightforward to report these cases to the city council, which would establish the breach of tenancy […]
On 1 July, the City Council did not manage to get through all the items on the agenda. There were still some important items left, which then had to be carried over to the continuation of the meeting on 2 July. And once again, the discussion centred on the city’s financial difficulties – for which […]
How long will this heatwave actually remain in the memories of the people of Leipzig? On 1 July, it was still cool. Even the Leipzig City Council was delighted that the first LVB trams were running again at all, after the local transport company had been forced to suspend all services over the weekend of […]
At the council meeting on 1 July, zoo director Dr Jörg Junhold was also sitting on pins and needles amongst the audience. The issue at stake was whether he would be able to complete his life’s work – the ‘Zoo of the Future’ – by 2028 at the latest, when Leipzig Zoo celebrates its 150th […]
City council debates can simply be a nuisance. Especially when they are underpinned by false arguments and deal with the ‘affluence problems’ of a minority who simply cannot wait until they have their vehicle registration documents in hand. The phrase ‘affluence-related problems’ was used by Marco Zscherny, a city councillor for the BSW. And he’s […]
In fact, Leipzig City Council had already sent a clear signal back in March against the plans of Wolfram Weimer, Germany’s State Secretary for Culture, to simply scrap the fifth extension to the German National Library in Leipzig. Even though it is urgently needed to house the books of the next 30 years. Weimer’s announcement […]
Pupils from the Leibniz-Gymnasium on Nordplatz also took the opportunity on 1 July to attend the council meeting as guests. This was because the agenda for that day included an item that was of great interest to them: when would it finally be their school’s turn for refurbishment? The Left Party had tabled a question […]
Is it all over? Or can the state government’s decision still be overturned – so that, instead of replacing the Agra Bridge on the B2 with a new structure in the 100-year-old park, a tunnel or underpass is built? This was the subject of a BSW motion at the council meeting on 1 July. A […]
One is allowed to dream, after all. Even city councillors are allowed to dream – of a beautiful, peacefully situated villa in Machern, where one can not only sleep soundly but also hold party group retreats in a seclusion from city life that is otherwise hard to find in Leipzig. And so it came as […]
Who, in fact, has manoeuvred the city into such a quandary that there is suddenly a heated public debate not only about whether the small wood that has grown up on Capastraße over the last 30 years may be cleared to provide RB Leipzig with new training grounds? It is a question that remains entirely […]
It was not only Left Party city councillor Susanne Scheidereiter who was deeply disappointed when, at the council meeting on 1 July, the latest motion to reduce the city’s impervious surface area was rejected by the council majority. The Greens’ parliamentary group, too, had repeatedly failed with its motions in recent years, even though the […]
There is a certain irony in the fact that two city councillors – one from the BSW and one from the AfD – have jointly tabled a motion with the misleading title ‘Pilot project: Voluntary driving licence exchange’. The title is misleading because, as you know, old driving licences – the grey and pink ones, […]
Leipzig did indeed purchase the former goods shed at Connewitz S-Bahn station in 2024. However, the city is not alone on the site of the former goods yard. The discount retailer ALDI has acquired its own plot of land there from Deutsche Bahn, on which it plans to build a new ALDI supermarket. However, the […]
That really was something else, and even Leipzig’s city administration rarely manages to take three years to respond to a motion from the city council with its own position. This is exactly what happened with a motion tabled by the Green Party group in April 2023: ‘Enabling temporary and mobile urban green spaces’. After all, […]
More and more households in Leipzig are struggling not only to find an affordable flat, but also – once they have one – to pay their rent. This is made clear even by the 2025 Citizens’ Survey, in which the issue of rent and housing was overwhelmingly identified as the number one problem facing Leipzig’s […]
A town thrives on optimism, on the feeling that things are moving forward and life goes on. But what if the town is financially strangled? Then the town council’s ability to even draft and pass meaningful motions begins to dwindle. Even when – as in the case of the Forced Labour Memorial – the aim […]
Torsten Bonew, the city’s finance councillor, had to bring this item forward as a matter of urgency at the council meeting on 1 July, as it got right to the heart of the matter – the financial situation of the City of Leipzig. It is catastrophic. The 2025/2026 budget has already made this abundantly clear. […]
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