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30 Most Recent News Stories
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Mon 19th May 2008
The Tory controlled County Council has responded to the Liberal Democrat campaign to improve the condition of Surrey's roads by allocating funding for road maintenance and financing a two-year programme worth £35.4 million. This follows their failure to spend all their own Highways budget over the last five years.
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Read "Tories Respond to Lib Dem Campaign to Repair Roads" in full
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Wed 7th May 2008
Liberal Democrats at Surrey County Council have maintained their strong opposition to the Surrey Waste Plan (SWP), voting against a recommendation to adopt it when it came before the council at its Annual Meeting. The council was being asked to agree to its adoption following a report published by Government inspectors into the public examination of the Plan at the end of 2007. This report declared the plan to be 'sound' but Cllr Sarah Di Caprio, Lib Dem group Environment spokesperson, said the inspectors had pointed to various shortcomings in the plan and they suggested calling for an early review.
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Read "Surrey Liberal Democrats stand firm on county's Waste Plan" in full
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Fri 14th Mar 2008
The schools admission process is a long haul for parents, with applications made in the autumn and places only now being offered for this coming September, 2008. At the same time Surrey County Council has been going through the equally long process of deciding how school places will be allocated for September 2009.
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Read "School Admissions Update" in full
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Tue 5th Feb 2008
Liberal Democrats at Surrey County Council today opposed the ruling Conservative administration's 4.8% rise in Council Tax and condemned a cut in roads and schools maintenance spending. Highlighting her group's alternative proposals, Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Hazel Watson (Dorking Hills), said it would be possible to limit the Council Tax rise to 4.5%, a saving of £1.5m.
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Read "Tory budget is bad news for Surrey residents" in full
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Mon 4th Feb 2008
The Liberal Democrat Group recently tried to get the majority Conservative group on Surrey County Council to back the campaign for an "in or out" Euro referendum. The Lib Dems say this referendum would be an opportunity for the British public to determine whether Britain should continue to be a member of the European Union or not.
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Read "Lib Dems challenge Tories to support "in or out" referendum" in full
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Sat 2nd Feb 2008
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".
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Read "Surrey Roads Budget Under-spent for the Fifth Year Running" in full
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Wed 23rd Jan 2008
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.
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Read "Youth Service Staff 'Freeze' Remains at Surrey County Council" in full
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Tue 18th Dec 2007
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.
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Read "School Admissions" in full
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Tue 18th Dec 2007
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.
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Read "Emergency Planning Department Fiasco" in full
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Tue 18th Dec 2007
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.
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Read "Marginal Improvement by Road Contractors is not Good Enough" in full
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Tue 27th Nov 2007
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.
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Read "Surrey Lib Dems demand action on Frontline Vacancies" in full
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Thu 25th Oct 2007
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.
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Read "Highways Claims Soar" in full
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Thu 25th Oct 2007
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.
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Read "Over-development Fears Grow" in full
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Mon 30th Jul 2007
The Family First service, which helps prevent young people having to go into care, is under threat as Surrey County Council pulls its funding from this project. The service, which is a partnership between the County Council and the children's charity NCH, helps young people who have been excluded from school or who have problems at home.
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Read ""Family First" service under threat" in full
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Mon 30th Jul 2007
John Doran, Lib Dem spokesman on Transport, last week proposed a motion calling for more urgency in the development of the Transport Co-ordination Centre (TCC). In October 2004 the Executive of the Council had endorsed the proposal to set up a TCC, which was backed by all parties because it was claimed that there could be a 10% saving on a budget of £45 million.
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Read "Lib Dems Call for Urgency in Transport Coordination" in full
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Fri 6th Jul 2007
The Conservatives running Surrey County Council have thrown out Liberal Democrat proposals to increase public involvement in its affairs by agreeing in principle to the webcasting of meetings. They also vetoed proposals to permit members of the public to address meetings of the full Council.
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Read "Tories veto moves to involve the public." in full
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Thu 5th Jul 2007
At the recent County Council meeting the majority Conservative group used a report on procedure to remove the right of Opposition groups to introduce motions for debate, without getting their permission first. Until now minority groups have had the right to introduce motions on any issues of concern and have them debated at the time. Now all decisions on whether to debate any motion have been put in the hands of the Tory majority.
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Read "Tories stifle open debate of their failures" in full
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Wed 4th Jul 2007
A senior Conservative in Southall has defected to the Liberal Democrats, following the imposition of a candidate on the local party by Tory spin doctors. Mr Brij Mohan Gupta, Deputy Chair of Southall Conservatives has joined the Liberal Democrats and backed the Liberal Democrat by-election candidate Nigel Bakhai.
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Read "Tories split by Defection in Southall" in full
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Mon 18th Jun 2007
The Liberal Democrat group have called for Surrey County Council to introduce more effective workforce planning. In order to provide good quality, value for money services, the Council needs to plan and manage its workforce to ensure that it has the right number of people who are suitably qualified and trained and in the right places to provide the services that Surrey residents need. The first step towards achieving this objective is to develop an effective workforce plan. This plan should set out how the Council would recruit, support, develop and retain the employees it needs currently and in the future.
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Read "County Council needs more effective Workforce Planning." in full
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Sun 11th Mar 2007
Surrey, Epsom & Ewell and Sutton Lib Dems all played key roles in the recent defence of Nonsuch Park, threatened by Surrey County Council (SCC) Tories' plans to "dispose" of Nonsuch Mansion, amidst local concerns that Tory plans would spoil this quiet haven of peace.
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Read "The Battle of Nonsuch" in full
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Archive of earlier News Stories
 News Story Feed(v1.0).
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Published and promoted by Surrey County Council Liberal Democrat Group, County Hall, Kingston upon Thames KT1 2DN
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