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.
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.
Epsom & Ewell borough council will not prepare any action plan to deal with air pollution levels in Ewell High Street "until we receive any dire problems", according to the Chairman of their Social Committee, answering a formal question at a meeting of the borough council on Tuesday 22nd July.
At a meeting on 22nd July, the borough council will be asked to look again at the findings of the 2007 Residents' Survey.
Epsom & Ewell's Lib Dem councillors are asking the borough council by way of a "Motion to Council" to plan an Epsom Town Centre for the future.
The amendments to the South-East Plan proposed by the Secretary of State this week, in response to the Independent Panel Report on the draft prepared by the Regional Assembly, do not appear to further increase the demand for additional new housing sites in Epsom & Ewell, which could only have been provided at the expense of the Metropolitan Green Belt.
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.
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.
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.
Surrey County Council Liberal Democrats have called on the ruling Conservative administration to urgently prioritize filling vacancies to front-line services in what group leader Cllr Hazel Watson said was a clear case of the Council "taking its eye off the ball". Nearly two years on from SCC's Business Delivery Review (BDR) which was supposed to result in a "Council fit for purpose" with the right workforce to deliver those services, front-line services are still short on essential staff according to the Liberal Democrats.
Legal claims from motorists who allege their vehicles were damaged because of the poor condition of Surrey's roads are likely to double by the end of this year. In 2006 Surrey County Council received 518 public liability claims from drivers relating to the condition of the roads. The number of highways claims made between January and mid October 2007 reached 954, which is almost double the number for the whole of last year. In 2007 up to mid October, 50 claims totalling nearly £33,000 have been paid by the County Council. However further claims are likely to be received and to be paid before the end of the year.
Liberal Democrats are getting increasingly anxious at the growing threat of over development in Surrey. The Inquiry into the new South East Plan has recommended an increase in housing numbers, with Green Belt reviews in parts of the county. In addition the government has just published a housing Green Paper which makes it clear that Gordon Brown's government wants to see an increase in housing even beyond the levels set out by the Inquiry.
