Highway maintenance budgets cut despite roads getting worse

IT is official - Somerset’s roads are getting worse under the Liberal Democrats.
County Council highways officials have stated in official reports that roads in the county are deteriorating fast.
Only months after the County Hall Lib Dems slashed their highways maintenance budgets, their own officers have admitted that the number of safety defects has increased significantly.
They also admit the condition of both major and minor roads across the county has been deteriorating.
Councillor Anthony Trollope-Bellew, who is the Conservative county council group spokesman on highways, said: “It gives me no pleasure to say I am not surprised to hear this news.
“I warned the Lib Dems that any cuts to these essential budgets would lead to a worsening in road condition and misery for road users, and this is exactly what has happened.”
Councillor Ken Maddock, the leader of the county council Conservative group, said: “Yet again, another Lib Dem cut hits a vital service and has a real impact on the lives of the people of Somerset.
“The Lib Dems have constantly denied that Somerset’s roads are getting worse, even though everybody else in Somerset knows how bad they have become.
“But now that their officers have painted such a bleak, honest picture of their condition, I hope that the Lib Dems will finally sit up and take action.
“Conservatives will rescue our roads and make Somerset a better place to live.”

• The photographs show some examples of how bad Somerset’s roads are becoming.
  

Our pavements are officially the worst in the Westcountry

PAVEMENTS in Somerset are the worst in the Westcountry - and that is official.
My Conservative colleagues at County Hall have reacted with shock after seeing the latest performance figures showing that Lib Dem Somerset’s pavements are the worst of any council in the South West.
A report from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) collated data from the Audit Commission which showed the condition of Somerset’s pavements is almost twice as bad as the national average.
Somerset was also placed bottom of the list for South West local authorities.
CSP figures show that 42 per cent of pavements in Somerset are in need of repair, almost twice the average for the whole country.
The situation nationally has only marginally improved since last year, when the CSP called on local authorities to urgently address the problem of broken pavements, which can increase the risk of falls, especially for older people.
No wonder my county Conservative colleagues were so dismayed by the news of Somerset’s failings.
The CSP report showed that almost half of all footways in the county are in need of repair.
The practical reality of the situation is that every day, thousands of Somerset residents have to take their lives into their own hands just by walking down the street.
This needs action before any more residents injure themselves.
We must take action as a matter of urgency to put this right.
If we leave it, then it will only end up costing the county council - that means us council taxpayers - more in the long-run.
There will be more injuries, more claims against the council, and more misery for local people.
We deserve better.
The CSP wants councils such as Somerset to make 2009 the year for carrying out repairs to broken and uneven pavements, which will improve safety and help to protect people from unnecessary falls.
Lynn Sutcliffe, a spokeswoman for CSP and vice-chairman of AGILE (Chartered Physiotherapists working with Older People), said: “Once an older person has fallen, it can seriously affect their physical and emotional wellbeing.
“It can make them anxious and limit their enjoyment of activities they previously enjoyed.
“Walking on uneven ground requires older people to be fit and strong, and able to withstand disturbances to their balance.
“If local authorities act sooner rather than later to fix the pavements that need repair, many unnecessary falls could be avoided.”
The subject of broken pavements was the theme of National Falls Awareness Day 2008, run by Help the Aged.
The charity carried out research showing that 2,300 older people fall on broken pavements every day and nearly 80,000 of those who have fallen each year are subsequently afraid to leave the house.
Pamela Holmes, Help the Aged healthy ageing manager, said: “These new figures released by the CSP show that broken and damaged pavements still represent a significant problem for older people with mobility problems.
“Our own research suggested that councils are caught in a vicious circle.
“On the one hand they are required to sit on large sums of money to cover legal fees and compensation, and on the other they are cash-strapped when it comes to repairing pavements that may cause falls in the first place.
“It is vital that councils invest more money in keeping public walkways safe, as falls are a leading cause of death for over-75s and at the very least, one fall can shatter an older person’s physical and mental well-being.”
Mark Formosa, who is the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Taunton Deane, has already helped to collect a large petition in Taunton which complains about the state of some pavements in the county town.
Mark has presented the petition to the county council because it is responsible for maintaining the footways.

• The photographs show the state of some pavements in Taunton, and also Mark Formosa with two residents with whom he worked to collect a petition protesting at how the county council was failing to properly maintain the pavements.

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.

David Cameron comes to town

YOU know how you see some people on television, and then, when you actually get to meet them in person, they seem very different?
Well, today I met David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader - and he turned out to be exactly the same person whom I have seen on television many times.
He was just as tall as I expected him to be, he had exactly the same skin complexion, he was just as smartly dressed, he smiled in the same manner, he spoke in the same tone of voice, and his message was exactly online.
It was a little bit like being on the set of a TV show and somehow not quite real.
Here was the man who is going to be the UK’s next elected Prime Minister - in about 15 months’ time unless Gordon Brown messes up even more than he has already - and here I was saying hello to him and shaking hands with him.
I wonder if he will remember me, should I attend the Party conference in the autumn and bump into him again.
Probably not.
It was an interesting and rewarding experience and one which raised the hairs on the back of my neck, even despite the fact that as a journalist I have been used to meeting leaders of the different political parties, as well as Ministers, celebrities, sporting stars, diplomats, and captains of industry, and have been up close with the Queen and members of her Royal family, including the late Princess Diana.
David Cameron’s visit to Taunton brought home how important to the future of this country is the need for Conservatives to form the next administration at County Hall.
If the electorate go out to vote in the Somerset County Council elections on June 4 and throw their support behind the Conservatives in large enough numbers, it will surely hasten the next General Election.
In turn, this will see David Cameron installed in No 10 as Prime Minister, and he will change the course which this country has been taking under Gordon Brown.
Labour have shown their ineptness at running the country and have plunged us headlong into economic chaos the like of which we have not seen since the war.
David Cameron now needs to get into Government as quickly as possible to appoint the Conservative Ministers who will turn things around and steer the economy back into calmer waters.
And Conservatives need to get into power at County Hall to freeze council tax bills, reduce the county’s debt mountain, save our small schools, mend our roads and pavements, and bring much-needed change to Somerset.

• The photographs shows (TOP) John Thorne (left) with David Cameron and other county council candidates, and (BELOW) John Thorne (third, right) with David Cameron supporting the Conservatives' pledge to freeze council tax at the county council.

Roundabout is needed to improve Wellington relief road safety

MARK Formosa, our Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Taunton Deane, has joined me in calling on the highways authority to create a roundabout on Wellington’s relief road to ease rush hour traffic congestion.
I showed Mark one morning how traffic builds up at the staggered crossroads with Pyles Thorne Road and Ford Street.
We saw how it results in some drivers becoming impatient and taking risks by pulling out in front of other vehicles.
Others crossing from one side to the other were pulling out and stopping in the middle of the road to indicate a right turn and causing oncoming vehicles to hit their brakes.
It can be a dangerous situation and we already see county highways signs at the side of the road quoting statistics about the number of casualties who have been injured in accidents at this crossroads.
Mind you, those signs promised road improvements would be carried out in 2008 and here we are well into 2009 and all the County Council have done is to stick a number ‘9’ over the ‘8’.
Mark is now asking the County Council to look at converting the junction into a roundabout which will ease the queues of traffic at peak times and greatly improve safety for motorists.
I do not think it requires a huge engineering project at great cost to improve this junction, as I am sure a fairly simply mini roundabout would be sufficient.
It would mean that drivers have to approach with a little more care than perhaps some do at the moment, and they would have to give way to vehicles coming from their right, so traffic flows should improve.
I have over the years witnessed a number of near-misses at this junction and it is clear that the traffic situation is gradually getting worse as more people seem to be driving over the Blackdowns to work in the Chard and Honiton areas or are coming from those areas to work around here.
That is why I went along to one the Tuesday morning surgeries Mark Formosa holds in Wellington Community Centre and raised the issue with him.
The surgery is held every Tuesday between 10.30 am and 12 noon and has become very popular with local people who need help with all sorts of issues.
Even though I am a Conservative councillor, I still had to wait my turn and queue to see Mark.
So I was pleased that Mark Formosa so quickly took up my offer to come and have a look for himself, and also delighted to see that he is now taking such prompt action in pressing for something to be done to improve this junction.
Mark Formosa has a terrific track record of taking up local issues which really matter to people and getting something done to help.
He regularly raises issues which other local politicians have either refused to look at or have not even considered.
He is going to make a brilliant MP for Taunton Deane when the General Election finally comes along next year.

• The photograph shows Mark Formosa (left) with Councillor John Thorne at the Wellington relief road crossroads.