Focus must be on transport, community development, education and highways - Lib Dems

Liberal Democrats on Warwickshire County Council table amendments to the Conservative's administration budget proposals which will be debated on 7 February 2023 at Shire Hall in Warwick.

The Liberal Democrat group has used the following three principles of a Fairer, more Caring and Greener Council. The Government has once again chosen to use Council Tax along with the Adult Social Care precept as a way of shifting responsibility away from itself onto local councils.

Our priorities are to make Warwickshire:

• Fairer ­- giving opportunities for all
• Caring - for all our residents
• Greener - accelerating the work needed

Liberal Democrats will invest in:

• Housing support for older people - by further developing the housing with support offer to reduce reliance on residential provision for all ages; including consideration of capital investment.
• The Forestry Team - to meet the increase in demand and provide resilience to support emerging climate change initiatives, such as tree planting schemes.
• Community transport - to support the introduction and development of school travel plans as part of activity to further strengthen the ECO schools pillar on transport across Warwickshire
• The Outdoor Education and Learning Strategy - building the capacity to enable young people in Warwickshire to experience activities within the County
• Increase Community development activity - by supporting Councillors in their Divisions with the work of empowering local communities.
• Increasing the highways delegated funding - enabling local councillors to do more in their communities.

We will not take forward any cuts that we believe will have a detrimental impact on our communities and vulnerable people cross Warwickshire. Liberal Democrats will not:

• withdraw funding for the School Crossing Patrol Service
• reduce or stop bus subsidies so Warwickshire has a mostly commercial network
• take the benefit of increased income from use of our Youth and Community Centres, instead reinvesting the income in the service offer and facilities.
• support a further redesign and reduction in the number of Children and Family centres.
• rely on increased partner contributions to support critical domestic abuse and substance misuse detox activity
• support closure of libraries or reduction in their opening hours: these are vital places for residents and children.

Commenting, Group Leader, Councillor Jerry Roodhouse, said:

"The growing demands on our services - and in particular our growing older population as demonstrated by the recent census (2021 population and households) means that we are left with no real choice but to set the council tax to protect the vulnerable. We are proposing a 3.94% CT which we consider will protect services to the vulnerable and reduce the proposed cuts.

"We are keeping Libraries open as warm hubs and saving children crossing patrols, we are stopping the proposed reduction in children centres along with not taking the saving on youth centres these are but a few of the areas that we do not want to see slashed even further we are investing more in outdoor education, and we have also manged to shift resources towards housing support for older people and community transport initiatives. We will also be supporting each elected member with an increase in capital spending for highways work in their division."