Conservatives freeze Taunton Deane council tax bills

SOME good news at last for the Deane's council tax payers after the doom of gloom of the recession setting in.
Your council tax bill from the Deane council has been frozen this year and there will be no increase in it.
You can thank the Conservatives for this achievement, even though we are only the opposition group.
Our group leader, Councillor John Williams, together with our shadow executive members produced an alternative budget to the one which the Lib Dems put forward.
While the Lib Dems tried to claim they were going to have the lowest increase in Somerset at 2.9 per cent - later revised down to 2.7 per cent when they discovered it was not the lowest – the Conservatives produced a budget which showed no increase at all.
So, as we find happens quite often, the Lib Dems quickly plagiarised the Conservative budget and adopted the innovative measures we proposed for raising additional funds to pay for services.
Then, they agreed a budget which showed no increase in the Deane’s share of the council tax precept.
Unfortunately, you may not notice it as the County Council, which is also run by the Lib Dems, have continued to put up their council tax precept, and so have the Police.
In fact, the County Hall Lib Dems have more than DOUBLED your council tax on their watch, while you now pay more council tax to the Police than you do to the Deane council.
Despite the Deane’s Lib Dems taking all the best bits of the Conservative budget, we were not able in principal to support the budget as they presented it on two important areas of difference between us.
These were the so-called ‘free swimming’, where, as we know, the Government will only fund it for two years and after that time we are not going to have the money to continue and will be faced with taking away from people something that will undoubtedly be popular with them.
There are in any case already discounts in place for the elderly to be able to swim at little cost, and there will be a lot of restrictions on when youngsters under 16 years old are able to swim, so the real benefit for the Deane’s swimmers is only slight.
The other difference was on plastic and cardboard recycling, where Conservatives were setting out the real situation and biting the bullet for the greater good of the community.
While the Lib Dems were making very blurred promises to introduce it some time or other over the next two years, we were saying that given the bottom falling out of the market and given the fact the council has little money, it would be better to delay it until next year when the financial situation would hopefully be better.

Another achievement by the Conservatives at last night's budget meeting was to reduce the size of the council house rent increase which the Lib Dems tried to impose on tenants.

The rent increase was cut from the Lib Dems' near-seven per cent rise to 6.2 per cent.

It was still a large increase but at least we have managed to save tenants some money.

Ridealong gives first hand experience of front line policing on the Blackdowns

I HAVE just spent a bitterly cold night shift on duty with the Blackdowns beat officer PC Maria Jennings.
It was part of a Ridealong scheme the police are operating for local councillors to experience front line policing at first hand, and I was pleased to be one of the first councillors to take part.
However, sub-zero temperatures straight after the New Year celebrations ensured it was an exceptionally quiet night as most people seemed to have stayed at home in the warm.
The ‘lack of action’, which I am assured is extremely unusual as Friday nights generally see a lot going on, means I will repeat the exercise later in the year when there is warmer weather.
It was still a very interesting experience and one which gave an insight into the workings of the police and how they tackle crime and the potential for crime.
I learned quite a bit about what to look out for in terms of suspicious behaviour, and how criminals tend to act.
The big lesson was the realisation that although I frequently hear people complain that they ‘never see a police officer’ any more, there are, in fact, always police on duty at any time of day or night somewhere close at hand.
Our patrol covered an area stretching from Bishopswood and Churchstanton to Burrowbridge and Stoke St Gregory, and going into central Taunton as well.
I also met the three PCSOs who work with PC Jennings to provide police cover in the area.
It quickly became apparent that while people may be asleep in their beds at home, there was always a police presence out and about somewhere nearby and ready to respond to any incident.
We started the evening by attending a reported ‘firearms incident’ which immediately brought to mind images of armed response police officers surrounding a hostage situation, but actually turned out to be a case where PC Jennings simply needed to talk to some neighbours about the law which covers the use of a shotgun.
Over the radio, we picked up reports of a missing teenager, and then, later, another missing person even younger, as well as the ‘usual’ incidents of fights and public disturbance.
But they were all being dealt with elsewhere and we were not required, again illustrating how many police must actually be on duty even though it was now late at night.
We checked on isolated properties where there had either been previous attempted break-ins or the owners were away and had notified the police that there should be nobody about.
A group of lads climbing out of a roadside hedge just outside one village raised suspicions, but it was quickly clear they were just out for a midnight walk for ‘something to do’.
The other big lesson I took from this Ridealong evening was how the people of the Blackdowns are in good hands with PC Jennings as their beat officer.
She has 20 years’ experience behind her, all of it in front line policing, including many years in the Metropolitan Police.
She has a wealth of experience and I think the residents of the Blackdowns are very fortunate to have such a high-quality officer looking after them.
All in all, the Ridealong was a tremendously interesting experience and one which I look forward to repeating some time in the summer.

• The photograph shows Councillor John Thorne with PC Maria Jennings and her Land Rover police car.