The Labor and Lib Dem governments at Cambridgeshire County Council know the roads are crumbling but are refusing to do enough about it. Lately, they’ve admitted that their budgets aren’t where they need to be and are shifting the blame elsewhere.
But we also know that residents are tired of blaming the weather, lack of funding and government.
Residents don’t want to pay around £2,000 per household to hear their excuses. They want to take action now.
The Conservatives therefore set out plans to rescue the inadequate proposals with a £21.716 billion investment in motorways.
Over the years, Labor and Liberal Democrats have repeatedly voted against Tories’ proposals to increase highway spending, preferring to spend the money elsewhere.
Perhaps one day they will make a U-turn in their war on motorists. This year they just did a U-turn on the disastrous “weed-growing” policy and dangerous proposals to cut winter roads, which we campaigned against.
In this Budget, the Liberal Democrats and Labor say they want to reimpose the maximum tax increase “to close a £37.1m budget gap”. However, many of them are of their own making.
Energy scheme cost overruns added an additional £9.1m and delivery delays resulted in £11.4m of lost revenue.
Another costly failure was their campaign to stay in Shire Hall, which ruined business and cost taxpayers tens of millions of pounds.
Their refusal to continue working with Peterborough resulted in millions of dollars being spent on increased senior management costs and severance pay for executives.
Labor said it would impose the biggest tax increase even if the budget was balanced.
Their decision to voluntarily pay more than the National Living Wage, at a cost of an additional £1.733 billion a year, is similar to South Cambh’s Liberal Democrat policies. I believe that taxpayers should pay five days’ wages for four days’ work.
A further example is the deliberate enhancement of a government-funded scheme to impose another £3 million out-of-pocket cost on taxpayers in Cambridgeshire Council.
Conservatives can easily demonstrate an element of self-reflection that is missing from Labor and the Liberal Democrats’ arguments about who and why Parliament currently faces such a budget gap.
As conservatives, we also believe that we need to be efficient with the resources we have.
For example, we propose accelerating the deployment of subsidies to Ukraine. The Joint Government currently has £2 million in reserves with no much-needed plans for use over the next five years. Meanwhile, we want to help more people and communities earlier, when they need it most.
It would also integrate public health responsibilities into community board areas of responsibility, reducing administrative waste and enabling a more integrated approach closer to the public.
Highway operations, including roads, footpaths, cycleways, cliffs, drainage channels, signage, systems and carriageways, will cost the full proposed £21,716 million.
A detailed analysis of our budget plans reveals that £10.716m of unfenced reserves, sitting idle with no plans for the next five years, no future funding commitments of £1.5m, and £6m of unencumbered reserves. It turned out that the budget was overestimated in pounds and surprisingly did not include the receipt of capital. This includes £11.4 million.
We are proposing a steady and prudent release of £21.716m of around £30m towards highway improvements, with the remaining £8m earmarked for risk mitigation. You can
Against our own wishes, we were forced to choose not to propose lower council tax, perhaps in a desperate hope of securing support.
This left them with a clear opportunity to vote to improve highways and byways and do what residents want.
We hope the concessions will be enough to sway Labor and the Liberal Democrats, who are ultimately in charge of the budget.
Chief of Staff Steve Counts is the Conservative Opposition Leader on Cambridgeshire County Council.