In Framwellgate Moor, Pity Me and Brasside, as well as Newton Hall, residents have the opportunity to vote for the local Lib Dem team of Amanda Hopgood, Mamie Simmons and me! Many of you supported us when we were successful in stopping Labour close the leisure centre and have seen the massive investment we have ensured for the centre over the last year or so.

Many residents have also supported us in campaigning to stop Labour slashing opening hours at Newton Hall library, with over 1000 signing our petition.

We have also handed in a huge petition fighting against the over development of the greenbelt and have been the only candidates fighting all along to protect the greenbelt with tens of thousands of leaflets delivered mentioning the issue over the last few years. We will continue this campaign.

We have also ensured, working with the Community Centre committee, that Labour couldn’t shut down the centre. It’s original plans would have seen this happen, but as soon as I found out about these plans I started to get as much work done to the centre as possible, contributing from council funds towards new computers, windows and a new carpark. By bringing down the cost of repairs and increasing the number of users, this moved the centre into the invest category and if re-elected all three of your Lib Dem candidates have committed to helping secure investment into the community centre so that the community can take over and run it without the interference of the County Council. This will ensure that into the future it cannot be used by Labour as a political football.

The new play facilities in Newton Hall and Framwellgate Moor which your Lib Dem councillors were involved in securing are looking great and are well used now. The tens of thousands of pounds we secured for the projects helped to get them off the ground, and by working non-politically with residents, the Parish Council, young people and local groups, the result is fantastic. We have now secured new facilities for Caterhouse Road after a near 2 year battle with the Labour – run council. We hope to see these facilities installed in time for the summer.

Across the area we have also worked to  get more roads and footpaths resurfaced than at any time in the past. With a Labour county councillor for many years in the Framwellgate Moor Division so many roads were falling to bits. In just a few short years dozens of roads and footpaths have been repaired and resurfaced after Lib Dem intervention. We can’t risk going back to having Labour county councillors in our area, and most people we have been talking to around the area totally agree.

Labour are so desperate I have even had reports from residents saying that Labour are telling them that work I have secured to be done will not get done. This kind of electioneering is from the gutter and is not being accepted by residents contacting me.

Work to resurface South Lea and Brookside in Witton Gilbert have just been completed, work started today on Caterhouse Road and I have been told that pothole repair work I have funded from local budgets around the terraces behind Fram Moor Front St should start next week (though this could be delayed). The repair work at the top of Lund Av was finished last week.

I notice in the Northern Echo this week that the Labour Portfolio Holder for regeneration is defending his department overspending by £5m on the Thinford Roundabout work (total cost £14m of taxpayers money). He says that the overspend is coming out of the contingency budget within the department. So in effect his view is – we had £4-5m not allocated to anything, so it doesn’t matter that we are now using it all half a mile from his house on an over budget project! Labour need to wake up and realise that across the County, with their £250million pounds backlog of road and pavement repairs, wasting money like this isn’t just unacceptable, it is downright immoral. If we are to ever change County Durham for the better we must have as few Labour councillors after May’s elections as possible.

I hope everyone across the new Framwellgate and Newton Hall Division will support the Lib Dem team and across County Durham will send the message to Labour that they can’t waste our County’s money like they wasted money nationally in government for 13 years.