We submitted three main budget amendments to the Council’s budget yesterday but Labour rejected them.

£10m capital investment for school repairs: The Council currently has NOTHING in the repair budget using local funding and only £5.4m from government to repairs schools despite having a £118m backlog of repairs.

As far as the Lib Dems are concerned, if the Government is failing to provide enough funding, that does not mean the Council should put nothing in. After all, our schools are our responsibility.

£1m towards nature reserves and public rights of way: Might sound like a lot but it isn’t really. We have 55 nature reserve and 3500km of public rights of way and the council is failing to invest in them.

Rahter than leaving tens of millions of pounds in reserves, we wanted to see money spent on these areas, as so many people are getting out and about doing exercise. Labour refused, choosing to leave all the money in reserves.

£10,000 for each councillor to spend improving our area: Right now money is being put into Area Partnerships to carry out regeneration work. There is no guarantee that any area will get this money. We felt it fairer to take a small percentage of this money and let councillors decide consulting with local residents. Labour refused

We also supported an opposition motion calling for free parking in our town centres and City Centre to help boost the high street – paid for from money provided by government to tackle Covid impact. Labour refused this too.

We will of course continue to fight for and work hard to get as much investment in our area as possible.