Plans to relocate a waste and vehicle depot left councillors in a deadlock.

Proposals to move Barnet Borough Council's site from Bittacy Hill in Mill Hill were eventually forced through on the Mayor of Barnet Hugh Rayner’s casting vote, after Brunswick Park councillor Lisa Rutter abstained from voting.

The depot is due to move by December 2016, but original plans to relocate to Pinkham Way were dropped after the withdrawal of proposals from the North London Waste Authority (NLWA), which formed part of a joint planning application for the site.

Two alternative sites have been identified – one at Abbots Depot, Oakleigh Road South, Barnet, which would cost £13.5m, and one at Lupa House, Borehamwood, which would cost £6m.

Labour councillor Kathy Levine put forward a motion to scrap the Abbots Depot proposal, and to consider keeping the Mill Hill depot.

Cllr Levine said: “They did a deal to vacate the current Mill Hill site without securing a site, and now there’s panic. Being over a barrel, they are now proposing to pay over the odds for the other site.”

TheLabour motion was rejected after Cllr Rayner used his casting vote, which was also used to approve the proposals for the two sites.

Conservative Lisa Rutter, whose ward covers the Abbot Depot site, told councillors she would work hard against the plan, which would bring “chaos” to the area.

Despite calls from the public gallery urging her to vote against the plans, the Conservative councillor abstained from voting on the recommendation and the Labour motion.

Conservative councillor Dan Thomas said the council would lose millions of pounds if it kept the Mill Hill site.

Rejecting calls to drop the Abbots Depot plans, he added that the owners of the Borehamwood site could charge a premium if they knew the council was only going after one site.

Negotiations will now go ahead on purchasing the sites, with the preferred option being Abbots Depot.