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Welcome to the website of the Liberal Democrat group on Surrey County Council. We hope you find it interesting. Amongst other things you can:
Hazel V Watson
Group Leader
Lib Dem Campaigns
Surrey News
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Sat 7th Nov 2009
Surrey Highways are currently not repairing street lights except in the most urgent cases. A new PFI street lighting contract is expected to start early next year, which will involve replacing 80% of the existing lamp columns, so they are not spending money on repairing columns that will be replaced.
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Read "Streetlighting Repairs" in full
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Tue 3rd Nov 2009
The Conservative Cabinet at County Hall have refused to reconsider their decision to axe the Pegasus school buses as from July 2010. The Tory administration is reneging on a decision made only last December 2008 to continue the service for at least two more years until July 2011. The Conservatives do one thing before the election and another thing after.
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Read "Tories refuse to reconsider Pegasus School Buses" in full
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Tue 13th Oct 2009
The Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council have called for urgent action to resolve the problems identified in the report of the former Interim Chief Executive Mr. Michael Frater. This report described the Council's problems as a 'whole system failure'.
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Read "SCC Lib Dems call for urgent action on critical report" in full
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Tue 13th Oct 2009
Liberal Democrat Councillor Peter Lambell (Reigate Central) has condemned the recent refusal by Surrey County Council's Conservative administration to sign up to the national 10:10 climate change campaign. This high profile initiative is supported by all the main national party leaders. It seeks to achieve a 10% cut in carbon emissions in 2010.
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Read "Surrey Tories refuse to act on climate change " in full
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Tue 29th Sep 2009
Less than a year since they took the decision to maintain the service until 2011 the Tory administration at County Hall has decided to axe the very popular Pegasus buses from the end of the current school year. The decision to discontinue the service has been made without consultation with parents or the schools.
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Read "Tories to Axe Pegasus School Buses" in full
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Mon 27th Jul 2009
The outgoing Interim Chief Executive of Surrey County Council, Mr Michael Frater, has issued a damning hand-over report to his successor about this Tory-led council. His report describes the council as arrogant, bureaucratic, lacking in vision, direction and strategy, obsessed with itself, inefficient and unsophisticated, with a culture of blame and bullying plus a lack of leadership - and in denial about its own shortcomings.
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Read "Interim Chief Executive's handover report heavily critical of Tory led County Council" in full
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Wed 22nd Jul 2009
Despite massive public support for the Surrey Police, the government has won a vote in parliament confirming a spending "cap" that will force the police to shed a further 48 jobs, including 31 front line police officers. Astonishingly, although some Surrey MPs spoke against this move, when it came to a vote not a single Conservative voted against it. That was left to the Liberal Democrats, supported by two rebel Labour MPs and one DUP member from Northern Ireland.
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Read "Tories fail to vote as Government forces Surrey to cut Police" in full
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Tue 21st Jul 2009
Liberal Democrats at Surrey County Council have called for improvements in the way the County Council plans and prepares its budget. They criticised the Conservative administration for its unrealistic and short-term approach to budget setting, which has resulted in some council services underspending - whilst others overspend their budgets, year after year.
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Read "Liberal Democrats call for better control of Surrey County Council's money. " in full
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Sun 31st May 2009
"Support the Lib Dems next Thursday", says The Observer. As well as its Editorial, an article by Andrew Rawnsley praises Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats in the run-up to the elections for the European Parliament and the County Council as the one party that has consistently advocated Constitutional Reform and the one that has come out of the expenses scandal much less sleazed than either Labour or the Tories.
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Read "'Vote Lib Dem' says The Observer" in full
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Sat 23rd May 2009
Over the last four years, the Tories running Surrey County Council have provided poor services for residents, wasted millions of pounds of Council Taxpayers money and produced continual spin claiming that the council is "outstanding" when plainly it is not. The outcome of this sorry state of affairs is the demotion of the Council by the Audit Commission from a 4 Star council in 2005 to a 1 Star council in 2008.
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Read "It's time to Fix the Finances" in full
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Fri 22nd May 2009
Reacting to the Government's announcement that all Gurkha veterans with four years' service would be allowed to move to the UK, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg said he was "absolutely thrilled". The announcement follows a key House of Commons vote led by the Liberal Democrats that the Government lost. It outlined rules that will allow Gurkhas who retired before 1997 with four years service to settle here with their immediate families.
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Read "At last - justice for Gurkhas" in full
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Mon 18th May 2009
It has been announced that, subject to the approval of parliament, the Surrey Police Authority (SPA) will be capped. They will have to refund £1.6 million (about £3 on average per council tax payer) at a cost of a further £1.2 million for re-billing. The news broke just hours after the SPA had met in public last Tuesday, when the chairman Mr Peter Williams had said they were still awaiting the government's decision following representations made to ministers by the SPA.
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Read "Government confirms capping of Surrey Police" in full
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Archive of earlier news stories
News Story Feed (v1.0).
Printed and hosted by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY.
Published and promoted by Surrey County Council Liberal Democrats, County Hall, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2DN.
The views expressed are those of the party, not of the service provider.
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| Quotes of the Week |
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"Conservative MEPs Dan Hannan and Roger Helmer quit frontbench posts in protest at David Cameron's policy on Europe "
BBC Online
News update - 5 November
"Liberal Democrat run cities are green cities. I am proud that every Core City controlled by the Liberal Democrats has signed up to the 10:10 campaign. "
Nick Clegg MP
www.libdems.org.uk - 3 November
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