Students at the Royal Holloway have been expressing their concerns about the Tory plan to turn off streets lights overnight in many of our local roads. LibDem candidate, Will Coles, said: "The potential safety risk when walking home late at night and the general feeling of insecurity is very worrying."
The local County elections are being held on Thursday 4 th May, 2017. Currently Surrey Council is Conservative led and the Councillors who represent Runnymede are all Conservatives. We believe that a fairer representation of the people across the Borough is required to hold Surrey Council to account. We have seen how our services have been cut because of the budget being stripped down by the Tory government and mis-management by the County. We feel it would benefit residents if we had councillors from a broader range of parties, including Lib Dems.
The Tory government has broken the promise in their manifesto, that there would be "no expansion of Heathrow". Anyone living within 10 to 15 miles of the airport will be affected by both noise and air pollution as well as additional pressure on our road network and over stretched infrastructure such as hospitals, GP surgeries and schools.
A BIG thank you to all who responded to the bus cuts petition. Surrey has come up with a stop gap solution that protects most of the services until August. However, there is nothing in place beyond that.
A National Solution to Social Care Crisis Needed Urgently Many of us will be relieved that Surrey County Council have decided not to raise our Council taxes by 15% but the increase of 4.99%, which has now been agreed, will still be a huge blow to some who are finding it difficult to make ends meet. Over the last 6 years council tax in Surrey has gone up 19.3%, whilst many have seen little increase in wages. In spite of the increases we are facing a staggering £123m cuts to services in the next 12 months.
Local fire services in Runnymede could come under severe pressure as the Conservative led Surrey County Council has decided to close Staines Fire Station. Currently there are 4 fire stations across Runnymede and Spelthorne covering the 2 boroughs.
At last week's full council meeting Surrey County Council unanimously agreed a Lib Dem motion criticising the Government's 'Living with Covid' plan that will put an end to universal free Covid testing.
Ofsted have published their latest inspection report into Surrey County Council's children's services and rated the Council's service as one that 'requires improvement to be good'
Yesterday, Surrey County Council's Cabinet agreed to close eight residential care homes.
Lib Dems say budget fails residents:
Lib Dem Councillors on the Surrey Police and Crime Panel have criticised the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for raising Council Tax and drawing on reserves to expand their own office's budget by 17% to £3.3 million a year, while Surrey Police will have to make do with 50 fewer frontline staff than they need to address performance issues.
The Liberal Democrats have set out a "cost of living rescue plan" that would save thousands of struggling families in Surrey nearly £1,000 this year.
