As part of the BDR review ordered by SCC's Tory executive - and endorsed at a council meeting with only the Lib Dems voting against - there are plans to close six libraries in order to ensure that SCC hits government CPA targets for the ones that will remain open.The libraries that are proposed for closure are:
At the County Council meeting today the Liberal Democrats opposed proposals to cut services. The proposals were made in a report prepared by consultants for the Business Delivery Review commissioned by the Conservative administration to find £50 million of savings in County Council expenditure. Councillor Hazel Watson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council said: "This Review was supposed to identify savings without cutting frontline services. Unfortunately it has failed. The proposals include closing 15 youth centres and 6 libraries as well as cutting bus services. On top of this, the proposals drastically reduce the number of highways staff, which is likely to worsen the ability of highways to deal with problems promptly.
Surrey County Council's Executive have decided not to proceed with its PFI contract plans to build a new County Hall in Brewery Road, Woking. They announced this last week, but without revealing which other alternative they want to pursue instead. As a result of questions by County Councillor John Doran (Woking, Horsell) at this week's Council meeting it emerged that the Executive have not yet agreed how best to proceed and an announcement about the future should not be expected for some time.
Hazel Watson, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council, has called for the Council to reduce the level of mineral extraction in the County over the next decade. The County Council's Conservative Executive has determined that the level of minerals extraction should be set at 2.24 million tonnes annually. The Liberal Democrats believe that this is too high.
This white paper is not only flawed, it is also dangerous - dangerous to the health of our education system and dangerous to our children's education. An admissions "free for all" will cause widespread segregation and unequal educational opportunity. Please note our two Labour councillors - unequal educational opportunity! I think you will agree that these are not traditional Labour values - but there again this is New Labour isn't it?
The Government's new Education white paper is a massive document, with a great many proposals in. I guess only Paul Gray and the Executive member at this point could give an indication of the work that will go on to form a detailed response, and the length of time this will take. It's a paper that's full of ideas and ideology. There's a quite a way to go in terms of legislation and setting up the new systems, and a lot of decisions still to be made. In putting forward this motion, we have chosen to focus on three areas of concern, which - in educationspeak - will be particularly challenging to Surrey and may lead to undesirable outcomes.
