Lib Dems Welcome an End to Eyesore in Upper High Street
Demolition is well underway of the former Allam Motors site in Upper High Street, Epsom and one councillor at least has welcomed swift action taken by new owners confirmed as Tesco.
20 Aug 2008
News
Epsom and Ewell News
Lib Dems call on County Council leader to resign
Following the damning Ofsted review of Surrey County Council's services for vulnerable children (see the previous news item) the Lib Dem group of councillors have called on the Tory Leader of the Council to resign.
15 Aug 2008
Surrey Fails Vulnerable Children
A Joint Area Review of Surrey and its partners' Children' Services, published by Ofsted this July, highlights shocking failures to keep children safe and to meet the needs of young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
11 Aug 2008
Surrey Lib Dems publish Record of Success
Surrey County Council's Lib Dem councillors, which include Colin Taylor representing Epsom & Ewell SW Division, have published their achievements over the past couple of years. SW Division takes in the Epsom wards of Town, Stamford and part of Court.
10 Aug 2008
County Tories Continue to Ignore Public Opinion
When the Surrey County Council Lib Dem group called for more opportunities for the public to get involved in local democracy, all their suggestions were opposed, despite being based on the Council's own survey of public opinion.
28 Jul 2008
Council refuses to match money pledged for Christmas Lights
With pledges from businesses and other organisations of £10,000 towards Christmas lights for Epsom Town Centre, Residents' Party councillors refused to "match" this level of funding as they had originally agreed.
23 Jul 2008
Surrey County Council News
Lib Dems Lead Fight against Heathrow Expansion
At the recent Council meeting, Liberal Democrats proposed a motion that Surrey County Council should come out against further expansion of Heathrow.
2 Feb 2008
Surrey Roads Budget Under-spent for the Fifth Year Running
In answer to a question from John Doran, Lib Dem transport spokesperson, the Conservative executive member for transport on Surrey County Council admitted that the council was on target to under-spend its roads budget by nearly £1 million pounds. Mr Munro said "£1 million is about right".
2 Feb 2008
Youth Service Staff 'Freeze' Remains at Surrey County Council
Tory-led Surrey County Council voted today to keep the freeze on youth service recruitment, despite the obvious damage it is causing to youth services throughout Surrey. Liberal Democrat Councillor Diana Smith (Knaphill) put forward a motion calling for an immediate end to the recruitment freeze, put in place in December 2007. But the ruling Tory group voted to keep the status quo.
23 Jan 2008
School Admissions
The 'equal preference' system for school admissions was first used for admissions to Surrey schools this year, September 2007. It means that parents don't have to worry that they will lose a place in the second or third of their preferred schools if the first school is full, just because they did not place those schools first.
18 Dec 2007
Emergency Planning Department Fiasco
When the Conservative administration at County Hall took an axe to its Emergency Planning department as part of a major review, the 11 staff were reduced to just 7 - putting the whole county at risk. All the staff bar one left, leaving the county in an extraordinarily vulnerable state for several months, made worse because a freeze in recruitment blocked the advertising for new staff.
18 Dec 2007
Marginal Improvement by Road Contractors is not Good Enough
At the Transport Select Committee on 5th December members were given the latest set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the ill fated Surrey Highways Partnership (SHiP). The SHiP is the arrangement whereby Carillion manages road maintenance in the East of the County and Ringway in the West. Although there has been some improvement things are still not good enough.
18 Dec 2007