With the Eastleigh by-election just two weeks away, the Lib Dems are conducting their usual negative campaign to scare people into voting for them and to paint an ugly picture of the Conservative run County Council that they would like electors to believe.
They want people to think that, because the Council has to cope with funding cuts in a time of rising inflation, it is going to cut the services needed by local people - but nothing could be further from the truth.
Children's Centres
In literature going out today, their candidate Cllr Mike Thornton says he will fight cutbacks to Children's Centres the LibDems claim that the Council is carrying out, but this is completely untrue. All 81 centres are open and are now delivering the additional service of speech and language therapy for children with special needs.
School places
So is their claim that there will not be enough school places for Hampshire’s children. No child in Hampshire will be without a place in any one of Hampshire’s excellent schools that are acclaimed for achieving above average results. Not only that, but the Council is also providing funding for more apprenticeships to improve the life chances of our unemployed young people. The County Council expenditure of £565,000 on youth services for the Eastleigh Borough and Winchester District areas was an increase over the previous year, with specific spending on Youth hubs such as the "Energy Centre" in Eastleigh town, the HYPE in Hamble and the Y Zone in Fair Oak and Horton Heath.
So is their claim that there will not be enough school places for Hampshire’s children. No child in Hampshire will be without a place in any one of Hampshire’s excellent schools that are acclaimed for achieving above average results. Not only that, but the Council is also providing funding for more apprenticeships to improve the life chances of our unemployed young people. The County Council expenditure of £565,000 on youth services for the Eastleigh Borough and Winchester District areas was an increase over the previous year, with specific spending on Youth hubs such as the "Energy Centre" in Eastleigh town, the HYPE in Hamble and the Y Zone in Fair Oak and Horton Heath.
Running costs
Because of the efficiencies the Council has made in reducing running costs, it has been able to increase service budgets to care for vulnerable adults and children by an extra £14 million this year to cope with the rising numbers needing care. Also it is setting aside £45 million to fund the building of over 500 extra care units to cater for our ageing population.
The Council is spending more money on bus services than the districts and Boroughs had to spend and, having repaired the 30,000 potholes caused by severe weather conditions, it is now rolling out a multi- million programme over 5 years to make them resistant to further such damage.
Museums and Libraries
Unlike other Counties, all our Museums and Libraries are not only open but improving the range of services they provide.
Police
Their claim that the Council is reducing the number of Police Officers is also wrong. Not only does it have no control of the police or its staffing but it is also understood that the Police have no plans to cut the number of officers.
Webcast
Lib Dems deplore the Council's new initiative to use unspent funding from Councillors’ own budgets to broadcast, on its website, the Cabinet and Council debates that allow the Public to see how their taxes are being used. They say only 57 people access these debates, but those people are the councillors and council staff and it completely ignores the members of the public who access it live or watch the recordings later. The web streaming enables members of the public to access council debates when they would not otherwise be able to do so.
Perhaps Lib Dems fear it will show to the public their ineptitude in debate and reveal how wrong is their description of the County Council they portray in the leaflets they push through people’s letter-boxes.
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