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Tories conjure up fantasy finance
February 3, 2006 5:42 PM
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Conservative council finance (Surrey Advertiser Letters, January 27).
First we had Cllr Nigel Manning talking about the Conservative Executive's plans to spend over £1 million of council-tax payers' money on a prestigious new reception area for the council offices. He assured us that this won't actually cost those residents 'a single extra penny in council tax.'
Interest from this capital sum could be used to keep council tax down, so this assurance is fantasy finance. This £1 million of council money belongs to the residents of Guildford and Liberal Democrats believe would be better spent on projects providing the greatest benefit to residents, for example CCTV to improve safety on our streets, environmental improvements to give us a pleasanter, greener town, or community and sports facilities close to where people live.
Next we had the extraordinary letter from Conservative agent Richard Halderthay, responding to my complaint about misleading information in a Tory leaflet delivered in Onslow. The leaflet had quoted a figure for the borough council tax rise in 2002 - 03, under a Lib Dem-led administration, which was nearly twice the correct amount. Yet Mr Halderthay airily dismissed this as an unfortunate typographical error.
He claims he wants residents to be 'fully aware of the facts and clear difference between council tax levels of a local council run by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.' I quite agree. So why has he omitted to tell residents about the council tax record of that other local council, Conservative-run Surrey County Council? Over the period when the Lib Dems led the borough council, the borough's council tax increase was significantly lower than the increase from the Conservative-controlled county council in every year but one (the year of the county elections). In 2003-4, the Tory county increase was 17.94%, more than twice the Lib Dem borough increase of 7.36%.
Last year the Conservatives set a council tax increase of 2.94% - still above inflation. It included a totally unnecessary 'parking reserve fund' which the Liberal Democrats would have used to improve council services and give a below-inflation rise of just 1.7%. This was rejected by the Conservatives.
Cllr Vivienne Johnson, Lib Dem spokesperson for Resourses went on to say "The facts speak for themselves. The Liberal Democrats are very content for the people of Guildford to judge between the financial record of the two parties on the basis of full and accurate information"
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