The Conservative plot to cancel Surrey's elections
The Surrey Conservatives are trying to seize the opportunity to use English Devolution as an excuse to cancel this year’s May elections.
The Surrey Conservatives are trying to seize the opportunity to use English Devolution as an excuse to cancel this year’s May elections.
Following the formation of the new Alliance leadership in May 2024 we are pleased to announce that the Non Statutory – Best Value Notice, issued by the Government in December 2023, has now been lifted.
Runnymede Borough Council is pleased to announce the start of a £2.5 million energy efficiency initiative targeting over 160 council-owned homes.
Hello! I'm Ronan McCaughey, and like many of you, I fell in love with our wonderful Ottershaw community when I moved here 10 years ago.
This week’s vote on the Bill to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords is a step in the right direction. But we need to go further.
Virginia Water Councillor Karin Rowsell is expressing support for the Rose and Olive Branch to continue as a pub after its current tenants finish trading this Christmas.
The Liberal Democrat Special Conference in Birmingham overwhelmingly approved the party's Coalition Agreement with the Conservative Party. It passed the following resolution:
The County Council's Conservative administration has recently decided to allow members of the public to submit petitions at meetings of the whole Council, not just at committee meetings. This is something that the Liberal Democrat group at County Hall have requested many times in order to open up the Council, but which until now has always been refused by the Conservative administration, even as recently as March this year.
The Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council have for many years regularly suggested that the County Council could make significant savings by reducing its reliance on costly agency staff by reducing the number of agency staff and using its own directly-employed staff instead. At last someone has listened.
Proposals to cut "school special" bus services, in some cases from this September, brought such strong public opposition from parents and schools that none of them will be removed before September 2011. However, this is just a reprieve. All "school special" bus services across the county are still being considered for closure, with the Cabinet expected to come to a decision on 13 July.
For years services for young people such as the Youth Development Service have been Surrey's Cinderella. Budgets have been cut, with staff posts left unfilled and then frozen.This year a re-organisation at the top takes away the Youth Development Officers who lead the work in each Borough and District and further managers, replacing all thirteen posts with just four operations managers to run youth work for the whole county.
Improving services for disabled children was one of the requirements of the Improvement Notice issued to Surrey County Council in 2008, after inspectors said Surrey services for vulnerable children and young people were 'inadequate'. Yet Ruth House, the residential facility for respite care attached to Freemantles School for autistic children, is reducing the number of beds offered from twenty to ten, whilst the opening of Applewood, the new children's home at Banstead built to provide respite care for disabled children with complex needs, has been deferred, even though it has recently been approved by Ofsted as ready for use.
Liberal Democrats have passed new policy to stand up for bereaved families and kinship carers, so more young people can grow up in a loving, stable home.
We are committed to tackling the challenges facing our music industry head-on. By doing so, we can maintain the UK’s reputation as a global leader in music, while giving future generations the chance to share in its success.
The Liberal Democrats are committed to rebuilding the trust and compassion that the UK was once known for. We believe that our country has a responsibility to support those in need, no matter where they are in the world.