Hertford and Stortford Liberal Democrats

We are in the final week of the County Council Election campaign as I write this article. I remain extremely critical of the Conservative administration. In my opinion the Tory Councillors have failed the people of Hertfordshire - they have failed to look after our highways properly - they have failed to provide enough school places for all our children - and they have wasted our money on frivolous self publicity. Conservative Councillors also made provision for very large sums of money to be spent on supporting the 2 large Bishop's Stortford Schools in their plans to build on a green field site off Whittington Way. These plans were rejected by the Planning Inspector.

Why is there one law for the rich and a different law for the poor?

I thought we were "all in this together". Why have the Tories at East Herts decided to put up the Council Tax by £8 per month for people on benefit, and at the same time to reduce the Council Tax by 1% for everyone else? How on earth can this be regarded as fair?

Opposition Liberal Democrat County Councillors have hit out at the waste
of money on issuing over 2,500 Locality Budget Press releases in under
three years.

The Press Releases from County Hall publicise grants made from each
members £10,000 locality budget. They a range from small grants of £50 to
over £5,000 but each gets a press release drafted by officer that then
has to be approved and issued to all of Hertfordshire's papers and other media
outlets.

Liberal Democrat Opposition Leader Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst(Central
Watford and Oxhey), "We have long thought that the Conservatives spend
too much on corporate self-publicity with 21 staff and over £3m spent
last year, and this proves it. If councillors have decided to make a
grant under the councils localism agenda why cant they just tell the press themselves,
if they want to - why employ extra staff to do this?.

"And why send every press release to every paper and radio station in
Herts? Most are of these are small local grants to groups with limited local
coverage. One press release a year once a councillor has allocated all
their money would be good enough and the information is already on each
councillors web page"

Money could be easily be saved here but no, the Conservatives refuse to do so!."
said Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst.

Senior Directors of Ringway have been hauled over the coals about their failure to deliver an adequate Highways service since they took over the majority of Highways work in Hertfordshire on 1^st Oct last year.

Liberal Democrat councillors have been highly critical of the performance by Ringway since November, by which time problems were already coming to light. In an open letter dated 13th January Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst detailed 15 areas of poor performance saying that the service was not good enough.

Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats are stunned that the newly elected Conservative police Commissioner, David Lloyd, has announced that he will not only take his £75,000 a year PCC salary, but also collect over £18,000 as a county councillor and a Dacorum councillor, including carrying on as Chair of that Council's Development Control Committee.

We Were Right in the First Place!

At last, the result has been announced regarding the appeals over the Planning Applications for the Herts and Essex and Bishop's Stortford High Schools to move to green belt land at Whittington Way.

The local Liberal Democrats are delighted with the recent decision on the move of the two schools made by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles MP. He has agreed with the inspector and upheld the refusal of East Herts Council to grant planning permission for five out of the six related applications (he allowed the Jobbers Wood application) - which torpedoes the whole idea of the schools moving to green belt land.

Herts County Council have published an Annual Report for last year, but opposition Liberal Democrat councillors have attacked it as 'one-sided' and 'biased', only reporting good news and omitting the bad.

It is supposed to be impartial.

Resources spokesman Cllr Malcolm Cowan (Handside and Peartree) said 'We have pointed out several errors and the failure to fully report all relevant news about the county council. But the ruling Conservatives have decided instead to ignore our comments and issue a 'rose - tinted' and one-sided report at the taxpayers' expense.

The Lib Dem Opposition Group on Herts County Council has slammed the Conservative-controlled Council's plans to abolish the regular Highway panel meetings as "an erosion of local people's say on a key issue - the way their roads are maintained".

Under plans put forward by the Conservatives, which will be considered by the County Council's Highways and Transport meeting on July 3rd, the current Highways Joint Member Panels system is set to be scrapped. These Panels meet regularly and consist of local County Councillors and representatives of the Borough or District Council for each of Hertfordshire's ten Councils areas. Local councillors discuss and decide highways issues and are able to receive petitions from local residents.

Several controversial topics have cropped up this month.

The proposed new pedestrian bridge over the railway line at Johnson's Crossing is provoking very strong feelings - some people feel it to be an essential safety measure, whilst others think that it would be a huge monstrosity, and that it is not really necessary. They feel that the lights, gates and sirens which have already been introduced are quite satisfactory. It is interesting to note that many people who are against the bridge appear to be the ones who live nearest to the line and who actually use the crossing as it is. It is interesting also, that Network Rail has not consulted with local people to find out their views, and has not been granted planning permission yet, although work has already started to prepare the site. Personally, I would like to see a bridge to keep people safe, but would like to see a smaller version of the one proposed, which would not be such an eyesore.