Work started on the Moor Lane/ Ring road roundabout

Ward funding paid for sessions of “Street Sports” at Leeside and Woodthorpe School. This has funding continued into 2008 and 2009

Carton recycling banks were provided at Tesco

Surveys over the last year show that only 4.4% of areas inspected had any litter compared to 19% in 2004. Detritus – leaves, etc. – was at 6.5% compared to 24% in 2004 and there was no fly posting and only 1% graffiti.

Residents of York sent 24,140 tons of their waste to be recycled this year. That’s 1216 tonnes or 5.3% more than last year. Overall, we will landfill 3.5% or 1,828 tonnes less of household waste this year. The total all waste going to landfill is down by 3,816 tonnes (6.3%). Great news for the environment and for our landfill tax!

At the Full Council meeting last night Labour revealed their plans to massively increase the number of houses built in the city over the next twenty years, putting our local green belt land under threat of development

They want to increase house building targets from 575 homes per year to more than 800. Such a high number couldn’t be accommodated by using brown field sites and so would put the green belt under pressure.

When challenged by Lib Dem Councilors, Labour were unable to say where the extra homes would be built and astonishingly Labour Councillor Dave Merrett said people wanting to protect the green belt were NIMBYs and the development was necessary to keep businesses happy.

Liberal Democrat Councillors in Dringhouses & Woodthorpe have been fighting to protect the green belt from development for many years. They have been doing this because local residents have consistently and strongly told us they do not want to see development on the green belt.

For the Labour group to be so dismissive of the views of local people is very worrying and gives a stark warning about their approach to the city if they were to control the council. Only the Lib Dems are in a position to prevent Labour giving the go ahead to development on our green belt.

The local Conservative party have failed to put up candidates in 14 seats across the city. Four of their nomination papers were rejected as they had been incorrectly completed, but they failed to even put in nominations for the other seats.

You can see from the candidate lists on the Council website that even the local Green Party have managed to put up more candidates than the Conservatives.

It is unbelievable that the Conservatives are so disorganised that they can’t even get candidates nominated for the elections. Their failure to put up a full set of candidates means that the Conservatives have no hope of controlling the Council after the elections.

The Lib Dems have hard working local candidates in every seat in the city. We have a record of delivering for local people and we are the only party to keep in touch all year round, not just at election time.

It is clear now that a vote for the Tories is a wasted vote. They have no chance of controlling the Council and cannot be trusted to even fill in forms correctly, let alone represent the views of local people.

Yesterday we launched our manifesto for the upcoming local elections on 5th May. You can download a copy from here. You can find out more about some of the city wide action we have taken over the past 8 year by clicking here.

There will of course be plenty of ward issues and campaigns on top of the city wide manifesto and as usual you can keep up to date with these in Focus and through this website.

 We are less than 10 weeks away from local council elections which are due to be held on Thursday the 5^th of May. Now is the time to check you are registered to vote. If you have any doubts contact the council here to check you are on the electoral roll. OR if you are not registered, download and send off this form to the City of York Council. The closing date to guarantee you are on the electoral register is coming up fast (the 11^th of April) so don’t delay.

The popular Dringhouses Library is set to benefit from expanded services, thanks to the local Lib Dem Council.

 If plans are agreed next week, the library will be transformed into an Explore Library, similar to New Earswick Library and the larger Explore Centres at Acomb and York Central Library. This will mean better facilities with new opportunities for learning and community events.

I’m really pleased that the local Lib Dems are looking to expand our library services. Most other Councils are closing their libraries so to be in a position to actually expand services is great news.

Dringhouses library is very popular with local residents and is an important part of our local community. The extra facilities will mean it has even more to offer local people.

Local Lib Dems have vowed to fight to protect leisure facilities in York, after it emerged the Labour group were considering the closure of the city’s largest swimming pool.

Last week local Labour Leader James Alexander said the pool was too expensive to run and highlighted claims that the city was oversupplied with swimming facilities.

This is not the first time that Labour have looked at closing Yearsley pool. In 2002 the Labour group proposed closure and the pool was only saved after Liberal Democrats campaigned to keep it open and won the subsequent election in 2003.

Yearsley is the only long course pool in the city and so is a unique attraction for the increasing number of fitness swimmers. Closing Yearsley and replacing it with smaller pools would mean the city would be without a pool that meets the needs of those people who swim for fitness.

In contrast to Labour’s failure to invest anything in the city’s pools during their time in power, the Liberal Democrats have invested £11m over the last 8 years and have secured more than £7m more through innovative partnerships like the one with the University of York that will deliver the new sports village pool.

Part of that £11m of investment has seen more than £1m spent on improving Yearsley Pool. These improvements have been welcomed by residents and the refurbished pool is now attracting record numbers of visitors. The number of visitors to Yearsley pool has risen by 40% since 2005

It is now becoming clear that no service in the city is safe from Labour, libraries and swimming pools are already under threat and those are only the ones we know about. Labour should be honest with the public about the full scale of their proposed cuts.

We will shortly be arranging a petition to help fight the closure of Yearsley and will post details here as soon as I have them.