Our Regional Spring Conference will be held at County Hall in Northallerton this Saturday and promises to be an energetic affair. Members have been re-invigorated by the recent Lib Dem victory by Willie Rennie in Dunfermline. We all needed to be reminded just how little the public trusts the 'flip-flopping' Tories and how we are recognised as being the only antidote to years of blairite authoritarianism and spin.
The County Council's budget for 2006/07, including a 5% increase in Council Tax, was passed by the Conservative majority at the Full Council meeting on 7 February.
The Tory budget is proposing to cut grants to voluntary organisations in Surrey by £838,000. This means a significant reduction in the money available to organisations that have a fundamental role in supporting Surrey residents and will cause an already fragile sector to fail in key areas.
The Tories' BDR (Business Delivery Review) will adversely affect the County Council's countryside services. The proposals, if approved, will:
With the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) fast approaching, Dr Liz Dick, a leading light in the Dundee SDP in the 1980s (and in the Dundee Liberal Democrats since the SDP/Liberal merger in 1988) writes:
The Tories' Business Delivery Review (BDR) will hit Surrey Arts, Music and Museums. Surrey County Arts currently provides 278,000 music lessons annually. However, tuition fees in Surrey are already 30% higher than the national average. Some 42% of local authorities do not charge any tuition fees.