By Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
Thank you to everyone across the Borough who voted Conservative at the elections last week. Thank you also to everyone who voted, even if it wasn’t for us.
Local elections matter. They effect vital services that we all rely on. At a time when democracy around the world is looking more fragile it is important that we don’t take hard-won freedoms for granted, but instead exercise our rights. If you don’t vote, your voice can’t be heard.
We lost two hard-working Conservative councillors. Such is the nature of elections.
However, in many wards we saw improvements in our vote share and only missed out in some by the narrowest of margins. This is something we can build on for the future.
We know we have more to do to convince residents to put their trust in us again, and my group will continue to work hard to win back that trust and demonstrate our commitment to listen to residents and hold the ruling group to account on their behalf.
Wokingham Borough voters have again delivered a Council of no overall control. No one party has a majority.
The Liberal Democrats are now the largest party and hold the same number of seats on the Council as we did last year, 26.
We expect they will continue to form the administration with the backing of Labour.
As we have over the last year, we will support the administration when we believe it is in the best interest of residents. But we won’t apologise for holding the Liberal Democrats to account.
We intend to continue to scrutinise their actions, ensure they explain themselves when they break their promises, and offer an alternative when we disagree.
The administration may not like it, but it is our duty to call them out when they fail to be transparent with residents.
When the Liberal Democrats took power last year, I said that leadership is about making decisions. In their time in office, there have been too many times where instead of offering leadership on important issues, the Liberal Democrat/Labour Coalition have continued to kick the can down the road.
This is most obvious with planning.
The administration’s strategy of talking rather than acting to progress a new Local Plan has exposed the Borough to development by appeal.
I am proud that the Conservative Group produced a full and transparent election manifesto which explained our policies and what we would do differently from the Lib Dems.
Unfortunately, we didn’t see the same from other parties.
In the 2022 election campaign neither the Lib Dems nor Labour mentioned their plans to reduce bin collections or put-up parking charges.
This year, Lib Dem leaflets were not transparent with residents either. Many people we spoke to were also deeply unimpressed by the administration spinning their waste policy as still being weekly collection – even though they know household waste and non-food recycling will be taken away once a fortnight.
During the election campaign, time and again, we heard from residents who are unhappy about the Liberal Democrat/Labour plans to reduce weekly bin collections.
On top of this, residents who are fed up of potholes and the state of our roads expressed their frustration at the administration’s real-terms cut in the Budget for road and pavement maintenance.
We will carry on raising these issues because we know they are important to residents.
Finally, the Liberal Democrats have developed a habit of ignoring consultations and petitions from residents – on parking charge increases, on weekly waste collection, on development and on elections, to name a few.
We will continue to bring the voice of residents to the Council Chamber whenever the Liberal Democrats seek to shut local people out.
Cllr Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives and ward member for Hillside
