TORY £3M BUDGET RAID ON EMERGENCY GRITTING FUNDS (Colne Valley Liberal Democrats)

Colne Valley Liberal Democrats <info@colnevalleylibdems.org.uk>

TORY £3M BUDGET RAID ON EMERGENCY GRITTING FUNDS

February 24, 2010 1:57 PM

Cllr Nicola Turner

Members of the council last night voted down conservative plans to raid the emergency winter maintenance fund as part of setting this year's budget.

If the Tories plans had gone through, 100% of highways contingency funds for winter maintenance which currently stands at £3m would have been cut.

This would have left the council's highways service with no additional funds available to deal with extreme wintry weather of the sort recently experienced should it strike again at any time over the next three years.

Cllr Turner said:

"I have absolutely no idea what the Conservatives are playing at."

"We've just been through the worst winter period for half a century, during which time we've had real issues keep the network moving, and the Conservatives come forward saying they would cut all of the emergency moneys highways needs in reserve for when the really bad weather strikes! I don't understand that logic at all."

"What angers me even further is that they have been targeting gritting as an issue which they think is very important whilst privately planning to slash the funds available to gritting crews. The logic seems to be simple, tell the public one thing whilst shuffling numbers around in a report and hope no one notices that you're trying to pull a quick one. It was scandalous and rightly voted down by the majority of the council."