By Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
Last week, the Liberal Democrat Leader of Wokingham Borough Council provided his breakdown of what he sees as the “achievements” of his coalition administration’s time in power.
In the interests of a balanced picture, here is a more realistic audit of the broken promises and failure to deliver from a year of Lib Dem/Labour rule.
Services have been cut back…
Your bins and dry recycling will be collected less often, and projects such as the solar farm to generate an income have been significantly delayed.
The Bohunt School expansion is delayed, and they have made a real-terms cut in road maintenance in next year’s budget.
Nearly 700 fewer potholes have been repaired under the Lib Dems than under the previous Conservative administration in the six months from May to December 2021 compared to May to December 2022.
To pay for fewer services, local people and businesses have been clobbered with increased charges.
Thanks to the Lib Dems and Labour your Council Tax is going up, fees and charges are going up, and car parking charges have doubled.
You’re now paying more for the Council to deliver less.
Action to control new house building has stalled
Having promised the earth, the Lib/Lab coalition have consistently dithered and delayed on a new Local Plan – leaving the Borough open to housing being built in the wrong place in unsustainable numbers.
The previous Conservative administration worked with local MPs to lobby government and successfully cut the Borough’s housing numbers in half.
All the Lib Dem Leader has achieved is a snatched conversation with Michael Gove and a promised invitation to a round-table discussion with other councils.
The Lib Dem and Labour inaction has led to a string of appeals. In the case of the planning appeal in Hurst it was the Hurst residents supported by their Conservative ward councillor, not the Council who did all the hard work.
The residents also funded their own barrister.
Residents have been ignored again and again
The Lib Dem Leader says that his administration won’t make decisions based on “emotion and prejudice” – his way of disregarding what you tell him in petitions and consultations.
In the last year, the Lib Dems and Labour have ignored you so they can increase parking charges, scrap weekly bin collections, and continue costly yearly elections when other councils are elected every four years. They prevented debate on a petition around development at Hall Farm – despite similar debates being allowed under the Conservatives.
And when councillors voted to cancel administration plans to cut waste services – as residents wanted us to – the Lib Dems went ahead with reducing bin collections anyway.
They even admitted in a Council meeting in July that the objective of their changes to council rules was to control debate.
Almost all the actual successes claimed are thanks to the Conservatives
The Lib Dems fail to mention that the money is consistently provided by Conservatives in Government to pay for what they have achieved.
The Government is providing funding through the Household Support Fund for Councils to continue to provide free school meals during the holidays.
Last month, the Conservative Government announced it would be provide new funding for children with Special Educational Needs. This follows three years of work by the Council’s previous Conservative administration to identify extra pressure and lobby the Department of Education.
The government recently provided an additional £589,200 road repair grant – Conservatives centrally and locally understand the need for road repairs where Liberal Democrats and Labour don’t seem to.
A few weeks ago, we heard that Wokingham Borough was nominated in four separate categories for prestigious MJ local government awards. These covered social housing, connecting residents to health and wellbeing services, delivering sustainability from the Wokingham regeneration, and working with the voluntary sector. All these nominations were for projects completed under the previous Conservative administration.
What this all shows is the Lib Dem/Labour experiment in the Borough is one you can’t afford.
It’s time for a change. On 4th May, elect the Conservatives to put you back in charge at Wokingham Borough Council.
Cllr Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives, and ward member for Hillside. Her seat is not up for re-election in this year’s local elections
