11:49am Friday 12th March 2010
When I was first elected in Sudbury, and Ann John was leader of Brent Council, Labour councillors used to spend £20,000 a year attending budget away days at a posh hotel in Buckinghamshire, enjoying expensive food and wine at Brent residents’ expense.
This waste of money was stopped by the Liberal Democrats as soon as Labour was thrown out of office in 2006.
Since then, Liberal Democrats have saved £80,000 Labour would have continued to waste on this extravagant perk, and invested it into local services.
The council has also used expertise from outside to help to modernise and improve services. For example, the meals on wheels service now costs £200,000 a year less than it did under Labour and offers more choices to our elderly and disabled residents.
We also used transport experts to help redesign the council’s transport services, and are on course to save £1 million a year from the previous £6m budget. Meanwhile, the satisfaction of users of the service has improved.
All these savings were opposed by Labour, whose only solution is to tax local people more. By achieving improvements in services and more efficiency, the Liberal Democrats have been able to invest in other services (such as more Police Community Safety Officers), and freeze council tax.
The choice is clear — better services and value for money under the Liberal Democrats, or waste and incompetence under Labour.
Councillor Chandubhai Patel, Sudbury, Liberal Democrat
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