CHAOS At The Council
March 1, 2003 12:00 AM
Shepway Civic Centre
Shepway Council is in complete crisis. As we go to press, the Council is set to slash services, bring in huge tax increases and axe many jobs.
Since taking control of Shepway Council, the Conservatives have turned the Council from one of the leading local authorities in Kent, to one of the worst. Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been wasted on consultants and big pay rises for leading Conservative Councillors. At the same time there have been huge Council Tax rises.
Lib Dem Leader Linda Cufley said, "It is an outrageous situation and local people have every right to be angry. The Conservatives are guilty of amazing incompetence. It's time they went and in May local voters will have the opportunity to make this happen."
She continued, "When the Conservatives took power, they inherited a healthy financial situation with balances of over £2 million. Four years on, those balances have been halved - despite large tax increases and cuts to many important services."
Budget Chaos
Tory Councillors are set to make over £1 million of cuts to local services. Areas affected include CCTV funding, regeneration money, tourism and even The Leas lift - which will be closed.
Lib Dem Campaigner Tessa Caruana commented, "Key local services are going to suffer. I am particularly worried about cuts to CCTV coverage in our area. There have already been reports of many cameras not working and a big cut in funding is not likely to help matters. Local people deserve better than this from their Council."
Bullying
The Council has also been in the news with some unnamed Councillors being accused of bullying officers. The names of the Councillors concerned has not been released, but we have learned that NO Liberal Democrat Councillors are involved in this.
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