East of England Liberal Democrats

Speeding: New vehicle activated speed indicator signs will be installed soon. These are like the ones on Putnoe Lane and can be moved to other streets. Putnoe Street will be the first location, but please get in touch with other locations you think they should move to.

Roads: Beaulieu Way and Fountains Road were the latest two roads to be resurfaced in Putnoe. Michael & Sallyanne have asked the council to do more next year and we are waiting to hear from the Highways department which ones have been successful.

Millions of people across Britain should now be noticing changes to their pay slip. Since the Liberal Democrats came into government, the Income Tax Personal Allowance has risen to £9,440 - compared to just £6,475 under Labour. This was at the heart of our 2010 Manifesto.

Raising the tax-free allowance is the Liberal Democrats' flagship policy and has so far seen Income Tax bills slashed by £600 a year for millions of low and middle income workers compared to what they were paying under Labour. This also means that more than 2m people on low pay have been lifted out of paying Income Tax altogether.

At an official ceremony during last night's Annual Council meeting (Wednesday 15 May), Councillor Trevor Miller and his wife Maureen began their term of office as Mayor and Mayoress of Chelmsford for 2013 - 2014.

Trevor Miller has been a Councillor for Great Baddow East Ward since 1995 and a Parish Councillor and School Governor since 1993/4. He was born in Suffolk and is married with two sons and three grandsons. He graduated from Reading University in Politics and Economics and rowed for the university. After university, he worked in management accounting and financial planning with British Railways for 33 years.

Earlier this year, Tory-controlled Brentwood Council awarded Tory Cllr Keith Parker's company a contract to provide fencing at Hutton Community Centre. Cllr Parker, prior to being awarded the contract, had spoken of the urgency of installing the fencing. This was in February, the work started in May. Some local councillors also questioned whether Cllr Parker's company was, in fact, a fencing company?

Cambridge Liberal Democrats are pushing for an investigation into the idea of a single council to cover the whole of the south of Cambridgeshire.

The suggestion to explore support for a unitary council to cover the entire Cambridge area will be put to the city council's annual meeting next week by the Lib Dem group.

The MP for Colchester, Sir Bob Russell, contributed to today's Queen's Speech Debate in Parliament. Limited to just 5 minutes, Sir Bob decided to concentrate on a single issue - a better deal for our community public houses.
Below is a copy of Sir Bob's speech.

"Successive governments have spoken of localism and sustainable communities, but the reality has not matched the rhetoric in many respects.

Crossrail's bid to buy Friars Avenue Car Park under a compulsory purchase order will be fought by Shenfield Councillors Liz Cohen, Graeme Clark and Barry Aspinell.

Lib Dem leader and County Cllr Aspinell has learned that the CPO was actually received by the Conservative administration on 21st April 2013, but the Conservatives decided to keep the information to themselves until 10th May rather than be open and transparent with Shenfield residents and businesses and, once again, putting political campaigning first and issuing a Conservative leaflet before telling the elected ward councillors or the Shenfield Environmental Partnership (a non-political group set up to manage the effect of Crossrail, amongst other things).

This is an update from local Lib Dem Cllrs Charles Royden and Wendy Rider on their recent work in Brickhill. For more news and information please click here.

Roads Programme

The junction of Windrush and Severn way will soon be resurfaced and the Borough Council has formally accepted our request for the repairs of Clyde Crescent and Falcon Avenue.We have also drawn attention to the access road to Thomas More School on Kennet Rise, Kestrel Road and Curlew Crescent. We will continue to monitor and agree with the parish council our road resurfacing priorities.