Roadworks, roadworks, roadworks. What’s going on?

You can’t have failed to notice that there are quite a lot of roadworks going on in Winslow at present.  All of the work is ‘off-site highways improvements’ related to the Banner Homes development off Verney Road.  As part of the planning consent for the development Banner are obliged to pay for these works which are designed to compensate for the extra traffic which will be generated from the development. They are not allowed to sell any houses until the works are completed and paid for.

The main works are in Verney Road, Vicarage Road and Burleys Road with some additional work in the High Street and on Buckingham Road. New parking bays in Verney Road and Burleys Road and a traffic island where Burleys, Verney and Vicarage Roads meet are part of the plan as well as a slight widening of Vicarage Road and two pedestrian refuges at crossing points.  On Buckingham Road there will be a Vehicle Activated Sign to remind drivers of the 30mph limit and some re-alignment of the road markings to give the impression of the road being narrower which apparently slows down traffic. Let’s hope it does.  The parking protection ‘build-outs’ on the High Street are likely to be the most contentious parts of the work.  The highways engineers believe that these works together with new white-lining will slow and improve traffic flow on the High Street. It will also make it much safer to be on the pavement outside the Co-oP and the butchers.  If the Co-oP delivery vehicles go to the rear of the store which they could, and should, then the scheme should be to everyone’s benefit. 

The work will stop on 6th December and start again on 10th January and is expected to be finished sometime in March. Only when all of the work is completed will we be able to judge how successful it is so let’s be patient and hope that the highways engineers have got it right.

Great effort but not quite enough for Llew

The full result of the County Council Election in Winslow was as follows.

Conservative 1553

Llew Monger 1225

UKIP                 437

Commenting on the result Llew said  ” I’d like to thank everyone who supported me on Thursday and assure them that I will continue to work hard for the benefit of local residents. Our returns show that we won the vote in the Town but not in the Villages which make up half of the County Division”

There is a long agenda of issues to be tackled in Winslow and the surrounding area and the Liberal Democrats will be active on all fronts.  If you’d like to help Llew and the local Liberal Democrats in future campaigning you can contact us through this website or call Llew on 07808 096513.

THE BURNING ISSUE

Literally – the ‘burning’ issue is the Tory County Council’s impending decision whether to locate an incinerator in our rural Aylesbury Vale.  They postponed the final decision until after the elections are over, probably hoping to avoid the the opposition that will be stirred up if they announce the go-ahead!  However, the cat is out of the bag thanks to the Stop Aylesbury Vale Incinerator  (SAVI) group.  SAVI will be holding a public meeting on Wednesday May 20th at 7.30pm in the Winslow Combined School and this will be an opportunity for residents of Winslow and other local villages to hear more about this possible threat to our health and safety.

The current prospect is that Waste Recycling Group, who run the Calvert landfill facility, will be the County’s preferred partner. They plan an incinerator  with a 315ft high chimney on a site near the present landfill operation.  Although the would-be developers and the County Council say the incinerator would be safe there is considerable concern among leading scientists about the safety of these plants.  For example the presence of harmful particles in the gasses expelled from the chimney which can drift for miles and the risks from dust blown from, lorries transporting the residual ash away from the site. The proposed site is only five miles South West of Winslow and the prevailing winds would bring the gasses directly over the town and nearby villages.

Clearly we can’t  just go on putting our waste into holes in the ground but we believe that there is vast scope for increasing the levels of recycling to the extent that there is no need for incinerators such as that proposed. In fact it seems that the Tory County Council plan to abandon all hope of improving recycling rates as the proposed facility would be capable of taking 50% more than the current total levels of waste for the whole County. So, do they plan to just burn everything?

For more information on the threat incinerators pose try these to websites.

www.ukwin.org.uk   (UK Without Incinerators Network in conjunction with Friends of the Earth)

www.useyourbrain.org  (Buckinghamshire Residents Against Incinerators)

 

 

 

 

County Tories ‘scared of the truth’

The controlling Tory Group on Bucks County Council prevented the Lib Dems from speaking at last weeks Budget settting meeting because they are afraid of hearing the truth says Winslow Lib Dem Councillor Llew Monger. ” At the public hearing of the budget plans a few weeks ago it was obvious that several members of the Tory Cabinet simply didn’t understand their brief let alone the potential consequences of the budget they were putting forward. Time after time they were unable to answer questions posed by members of the Liberal Democrat opposition team” At the Budget meeting of the full Council last Thursday the Tory Chairman prevented the Liberal Democrats from having any proper opportunity to debate the budget resulting in a walk-out of all the Lib Dem Councillors. ” This is what happens when you get a virtual one- party state which has ruled uninterupted for 120 years. The appaling Tory mismanagement of recent years has left us with a Council which still has as many employees as it did when Milton Keynes was part of the County. There has been no effort to manage staff levels down to an appropriate level and we are now faced with massive redundancies to catch up. This is an awful situation for the staff who will be losing their jobs and the local residents who will be having to put up with reduced services.”

Lib Dems slam Tory snub to democracy

Liberal Democrat County Councillors led by Cllr Mary Baldwin, the Liberal Democrat leader at Bucks CC, walked out of the Budget debate at the County Council last Thursday following a heated exchange on the right of the Liberal Democrats to speak in the annual Council Tax setting debate.  Cllr Baldwin said “we have objected to the way the Council meetings were run for a long time even making a formal complaint after the November meeting to the Monitoring Officer. That time it was after a series of Council meetings where the Liberal Democrat’s were not being given a chance to speak. I was reassured then that it would not happen again by the head of legal services. However yet again the Chairman was biased against the Liberal Democrats and stopped us from taking part fully at one of the most important meetings of the council – the annual budget meeting.” 

Cllr Baldwin continued “The Tories have one rule for themselves and one for the opposition. The Tories have been in power for 120 years, and just ride roughshod over our democratic right to hold them to account for how they are spending tax-payer’s money. The Tory action meant we could not represent out constituents properly. We had no alternative but to leave in an attempt to make them realise that democracy is vital and that we represent the voice of about 65000 residents of Buckinghamshire. It is our job to make sure that their voices are heard and we were prevented from doing this. The Liberal Democrats view is that we were telling them home truths and hitting them where it hurts and exposing the devastating affect on frontline services this budget would have and they didn’t like listening to the truth.”  

The Tories have since claimed that the Liberal Democrats were electioneering. “This is not the case and is an insult to democracy” said Liberal Democrat Councillor Julia Wassell who represents part of High Wycombe, “as an opposition it is our job to challenge the leadership and make sure decisions are based on fact. The budget meeting is one of the most important of the year and for the Chairman to clearly favour the Tories and not let the Liberal Democrats speak is outrageous.”   Cllr Raj Khan said “We had held several meetings on the 3.9% budget figure and knew the outcomes of this would be service cuts which we are against. For the leader to change that budget to 3.7% without notice in his speach, while excellent news, makes us very worried about what services that are going to be slashed to reach this figure.” -ends-