Mark Willis

Today’s decision to slash £9.2 million pounds from the Buckinghamshire County Councils budget is a hammer blow for many of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens,the Tories have had the grant from central government reduced by £3 million, but have been running an organisation that has wasted so much of our valuable council tax money that they had to find another £6 million to balance the books this year.Some examples of who will suffer are the reduction of £541,000 in the adult and family wellbeing budget, this will harm support for the elderly and their carers, or the 25% cut £200,000 in support to women suffering domestic violence, or the reduction of £362,000 towards road safety activities.

These cuts will have a massive effect on those most in need, to attack carers, the elderly, women in the greatest need, seemingly without fully understanding the impact is deeply disturbing, now I’m not saying that cuts need to be made, we all know that the country is in straightened times, we have to reduce what we spend, and our reliance on borrowing, but to have these cuts brought in by a party who have been wasting money hand over fist for years is hard to take, who can forget the marvelous travel information center, that looks great but cost £300,00, they now can’t afford to staff it, or the Bourg Bridge and its terribly laid out dangerous junction.

Even the reduction in Road Safety activities (code for speed cameras)  will have an effect, I know that many motorists detest them, I’ve been caught myself, but one of the biggest issues I get as a councilor is about speeding, Aylesbury Town Council do support the reduction of speeding, we even have our own radar kit (if you would like to be involved or suggest locations please e-mail me) that we use with the Bedgrove PCSOs to remind drivers of their responsibility, (No tickets or fines are issued) but this reduction could result in lives being lost.

In the light of these cuts the next question is was there an alternative, well yes-ish,  cuts do need to be made but these are disproportionately targeted, there is nothing in these cuts about altering the way that Bucks CC works, there are still massive problems within Bucks, contracts that have been signed that do not give good value to the tax payer, or the Pathfinder scheme where district councils (Tory controlled) would work with Bucks County Council (Tory controlled) and save money, that scheme died because the Tories couldn’t stand the thought of working together.

So when  you cannot get respite care, or an elderly relative or friend cannot get the help they need, just remember that £300,000 on the Travel Information center, and the wasted millions.

When you are in the ballot box tomorrow, just think before putting your X in the box next to Mr Lidington.

Q. Will his party reform the tax system in our country so that it is fair.

A. No the Tories will give a tax break to millionaires .

ONLY the Liberal Democrats will give a £10,000 starting rate for income tax, putting more of your money in your pocket.

Q. Will his party reform politics in our country?

A. No, The Tories are in favour of the first past the post system, so that your vote is only worth a fraction of what should be its true value, the Tories will not reform our discredited voting system so the governance of our country will still be decided by a few people who live in marginal constituencies, they will not reform the house of Lords, they will not reform party funding so they will continue to benefit from their Belize bankers support.

Only the Liberal Democrats will reform our governance, reforming voting, the House of Lords, and Party funding, the expenses scandal showed the folly of “Safe Seats” many of the worst offenders were Tory and Labour safe seats, changing our voting system will remove safe seats and mean that people get great MPs rather than whoever the big parties choose, we will also put a cap onto party donations removing the influence of overseas party backers.

Q. Immigration will be capped under the Tories?

A. But at what level, and that cannot include EU immigration, so ask again how many people will the Tories allow in.

The Liberal Democrats are the only party to have a sensible if difficult answer to immigration, first we will continue with the points system where people are allowed in based on their skills, but add a regional element, so that immigrants have to work in a set region where their skills are needed, next is the EARNED amnesty, illegal immigrants who can prove that they have been here for 10 years, have not been in trouble with the Police, and can speak English may earn their citizenship, this will remove those people from the black economy, & get them into the hands of the tax man, surely this would be a good thing, and lastly we would have a Boarder Police Force to try and keep illegal entry into our country as low as possible.

Q. What will the Tories do for Education.

A. You tell us, if you don’t like your local school rather than improve it parents will be able to open their own schools, if you have the time between working and looking after the family that is, so their answer is it up to you.

Only the liberal Democrats are proposing to increase the funding for pupils, this would reduce class sizes enable one to one tuition to help children catch up, DIY schools are no option, lets have better schools all round.

So when you are about to put that x stop and think, what do you want, don’t vote on fear, vote on your belief in our future that things can be done differently and better than the red, blue duopoly.

See you at the polling station.

 On Friday 26th March the Aylesbury Liberal Democrats protested outside the opening of the new council chamber The Oculus at the AVDC offices The Gateway, a noisy group attended to show how angry we are at what is in our opinion a complete waste of council tax payers money.

In our opinion there was no reason why AVDC and Bucks CC Tories could not have refurbished the Bucks CC chamber, it would have been in the center of town,  we could also have had AVDC council meeting on tour, meeting at parish halls all over the vale, bringing democracy into the towns and villages, instead the public still have to come to us to view our Tory cabinet dominated system stifle debate and damage our democracy.

The money saved by not building this chamber could have been used for many other things, Solar PV for social housing, refurbishing play areas, even restoring the grants cut from the community groups such as the Southcourt and Walton Court community project that the Tories recently cut.

Removing another 300 people from our town center economy  together with the 800 jobs already going at HBOS can only have a detrimental effect on the town center economy, to think anything else is barmy, and shows how far the ruling Tories are from the reality of the economy in our town.

The Tories claim that this chamber will be used as a conference center which it can, but we have another conference center soon to open in our town, in the new theater, so we will be going from zero to two conference centers, both owned by AVDC, and in competition with each other, the Theater of course has to make a profit, will it be undercutting the Oculus?

Comments and accusations made on the night have also hit the headlines, Cllr Cartwright leader of the Tories accused the Liberal Democrats  of canceling the taxi of one of the attendees, he had absolutely no evidence that we were involved, yet he still made this false, baseless, and as it turned out completely and utterly wrong accusation, AVDC had made a mistake, no enemy action was involved, we are now waiting for a full written apology for this false accusation from Cllr Cartwright, if he has the grace.

Cllr Cartwright also accused us of behaving like children, but if it is childish to protest against wasting Council Tax payers money, and to express that in a direct way, if it is childish to oppose a project and carry on with that opposition then I’m afraid that in Cllr Cartwright opinion the Aylesbury Liberal Democrats are going to carry on being childish, we will stand up for the people of our town, what I will apologies for  is any distress caused to any of the attendees at the opening party, our intention was to express our disgust at the waste of money, not to impact personally on the attendees.

Tonight I attended the AGM of the Aylesbury Credit Union, the organisation has been running in the town, collecting money giving loans, and supporting people who in some cases have no access to high street credit for the last 9 years, Aylesbury Credit Union fights the scourge of Loan Sharks in our communities.

At tonight’s meeting Aylesbury Town Council presented the credit union with a cheque for £2000, our and therefore the people of the towns contribution to their work, the money will be used to expand their services in the town, BUT it was revealed that there is NO funding for the organisation from AVDC, and therefor the Tory party, they used to give the Credit Union £3000, a paltry £60 per week, but even that pitiful amount was withdrawn.

Aylesbury Credit Union has been given some help,Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust recognise the positive effect that they have, Buckinghamshire County Council allow them access to an office in the Trading Standards building, it is the AVDC Tories who seem blinkered to the positive effects the Credit Union has.

I suppose you can understand their problem, here the Tories are wasting money on the new council chamber, blowing money on the new theatre, with Waterside’s corpse twitching on the operating theatre table and no income from that failed project, how could they spend a few grand on helping the Aylesbury Credit Union to expand, and so what if people cannot find work and have to exist on benefits, they don’t vote Tory so who cares.

So there we have it, the Liberal Democrats, &  Aylesbury Town Council support the Credit Union and the people of the town, the Tories couldn’t care less.

If you are interested in joining Aylesbury Credit Union please contact them at

Aylesbury Credit Union

C/O Trading Standards Office

Bucks County Council

Walton Street

Aylesbury

HP20 1UP

Telephone 07962 578548

They will be very happy to hear from you.

So another week, another Supermarket planning application, this time a Sainsbury’s Local at Adams Garage, next to Broughton Ave on the Oakfield Road, just a few meters from the Tring Road Air Quality Management Area, an area of already poor air quality caused by traffic congestion.

There is the issue of the new Sainsbury’s adversely damaging  the Coop in Parton Road, this is an anchor store, it attracts customers to the local butchers and bakers and all the other independent shops and services  available in Parton road, the Coop also has the benefit of having far better parking than the proposed new Oakfield Sainsbury’s will have.

The documents currently with AVDC planners make a great play about the distance between the store and the air quality management area, but surely if it attracts more traffic to the area it can only have a detrimental effect on an already congested and polluted part of town.

Then we have the road layout and the Russian roulette that pedestrians have to face in order to get to school in Broughton Ave, the road is a nightmare to cross and the plans make no mention of improving that situation.

The frustrating thing for me is that we really are a Tesco town, the article in the Bucks Herald about 60% of Christmas trade in the town going to Tesco shows this, but NONE of the other supermarkets seem willing to step up to the plate and compete with them, particularly in the fuel department, this is the reason why our prices are around 4p/litre more expensive than towns with competition.

So what do you think, a local Sainsbury’s would bring some mostly part time jobs but at what cost?

If you want to know how committed a Government is to fairness, then you need look no further than its tax system.Labour has created a tax regime where the poorest pay a bigger slice of their income than the richest. Polluters are allowed to get away with harming our environment without paying for the clean-up. And we lose as much as £40 billion a year to tax dodgers.

This has to change.

The Conservatives tell us that we are all in this together whilst promising tax cuts for millionaires and then say that there might be tax rises for everyone else.

So much for their kind of change.

Today, we have pledged to put a transformation of Britain’s unfair tax system at the heart of the Liberal Democrat campaign for a fairer Britain.

Our plans will see tax cuts for millions of people, paid for by closing tax loopholes, making polluters pay and introducing a ‘mansion tax’ on homes worth over £2m.

For more details of our policy proposals, see here. And for a video from the launch, see here.

What we are proposing is a radical rebalancing of the tax system with fairness at its centre. This is a real and genuine change that would make a huge difference to the lives of people up and down the country.

Please help spread the message among your friends, family and colleagues. There’s an easy way to forward this email, here.

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Vince Cable MP
Shadow Chancellor and Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader

From Nick Clegg Leader of the Liberal Democrats

I’m writing to let you know some good news about the Liberal Democrat manifesto - good news for students and for everyone who wants a fairer Britain. This week the Party’s federal policy committee agreed a way to deliver one of our most important policies, the scrapping of unfair tuition fees. We’ve developed a plan to phase out tuition fees over the course of the next six years, to ensure this vital policy is affordable even at this time of economic crisis.
Labour and the Conservatives refuse to address the issue of fees and there is a real danger that both of them would lift the cap on fees which could mean even more debt for students when they leave university. We think that is wrong and our policy will prevent it happening. 
It’s simply wrong to penalise people who want to make the best of themselves by saddling them with enormous mortgage-style debts from the day they graduate - especially when we know the root of the current economic crisis was too much debt. And it’s clear that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are far more likely to be put off going to university if it costs them tens of thousands of pounds. In a fair society, university admissions should be based on your grades and intelligence, not the wealth of your parents. You should decide whether going to university makes sense for you - and you shouldn’t have to make the decision based on your bank balance.
We were right to oppose tuition fees from day one, and have been right to continue to oppose any lifting of the cap on the limit of fees. The government has been obsessed with artificial targets for how many people should go to university, while putting barriers in their way in the shape of fees. My priority is making degrees affordable, and that means scrapping these unfair fees, including for those who study part-time. This is vital, because it tends to be older or poorer students who can’t afford a full-time degree, but under current rules they have to pay up-front, while everyone else is allowed to defer their payments.
Of course, at a time of economic crisis, when the government has got the public finances into a mess, it is extremely important to be responsible about making a big financial commitment like this. Students want to be treated like grown ups; they know money doesn’t grow on trees and that big spending committments like this are only affordable over time. That’s why we have agreed together to lay out a financially responsible timetable to scrap fees, step by step, over the six years after the General Election.
Final year tuition fees will be the first to go. Too many people drop out, often put off by the huge costs. We’ll make it easier to stay on, because no student will pay any fees to complete their degree. In 2011, we’ll get help to part-time students, regulating the fees they pay (a vital step towards abolishing them). In 2012, part-time students will be able to access the same loans as full-time students. In 2013, we’ll extend free tuition to second year students. In 2014, we’ll extend that same free tuition to part time students. And in 2015, as the public finances are recovering, we will be able to afford to abolish all remaining fees.
Labour’s recession has made it more difficult to find the money to fund our priorities. That’s why we are right to adapt our plans for big spending commitments and why it is right that our General Election manifesto will focus this time on a smaller number of key commitments. But our message to students is clear: we remain the only party that believes fees are unfair, and the only party with a plan to get rid of them for good.
All best wishes,

Nick Clegg
Leader of the Liberal Democrats

At the last meeting of the Aylesbury Town Councils planning committee we were treated to the revised planning application for the new ASDA store, for me it doesn’t really matter the changes that the company make to their application, the road system in that part of town has not been updated for generations and cannot take the traffic that it currently has to, let alone the extra from a large store, if you have 6 articulated lorries moving to the store using Lower road from the already congested Gyratory or the inappropriate  B road from Stoke Mandeville Village then that must add to congestion, the lorries travelling past the schools in the area can only add to the road hazzards to young and old living in the area.

Now I can see that there may be a need for more food retail space in that part of town, but a store of the size proposed is simply inappropriate for the location, I would hazzard a guess that most residents would like to see something similar in size to an M&S simply food outlet than what is on offer from ASDA, indeed most people would like to see ASDA come to Aylesbury with far bigger ambitions than they have a present and break the Tesco town monopoly that they Tesco have over our fuel prices.

The planning process now moves on to AVDC Development control, I have no input into that process being just a humble member of Aylesbury Town Council, but my Liberal Democrat collegues would be only too happy to take on board your comments, their contact e-mail addresses are below:

ASherwell@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk

GReynolds@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk

jpoole@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk

The climate talks in Copenhagen probably represent one of mankind’s last chances to avoid catastrophic climate change, now I know that some people doubt the existence of human induced climate change, the bulk of the membership of the Tory party for one, but why would hundreds of scientists say climate change is occurring if it wasn’t, what would they gain by making the whole story up, why would they sacrifice their reputations  for a lie, this sort of career suicide only exists in the minds of the deniers.

So what should we be hoping for from the negotiations, well a clear cut in emissions by us the developed world is a must, the economy cannot be used as an excuse to do nothing in the end we will gain by reducing our reliance on oil and gas from unstable countries, but we must support developing countries to build their economies along the low carbon model so that  they do not make the same mistakes that we have done, we should also look upon the opportunities that cutting our reliance on oil and gas from other countries would bring.

We are using up the last of the easily available oil, the cheap to extract high quality stuff is fast running out, the next generation oil will be far more expensive to get, and in the case of the Oil shale tars in Canada very damaging to  the environment to extract, so we must look as a country and a town to start the process of transition away from oil, create resilience and build communities, this will hopefully be the positive legacy of Copenhagen and ending our addiction on oil.

If you are interested in Transition have a look at  http://bit.ly/5tt9d If you are interested in getting involved with Transition in Aylesbury then please get in touch.

At  a meeting of the Greater Aylesbury Local Area Forum last night, I raised the subject of the Bourg bridge junction, due to the police investigation nothing concerete could be stated, but there will be a Level 4 review of the junction, this means that an independent person will look at all aspects of the junction, it will also take into account comments from the public and interested organisations, if you have any comment to make then please send it to,

Transportation,  County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury HP20 1UA.

Hopefully we can change the junction for the better, and prevent any more tragic events.