Liberal Democrats on East Cambridgeshire District Council are proposing to increase council spending to address key issues facing our area.

The Lib Dem group has submitted a budget amendment which would increase the council’s community transport grant pot from £15,000 a year to £50,000 a year, in recognition of the decline in local bus services.  They also propose to allocate £16,000 to additional landscape consultancy responses on planning applications, as increasing numbers of speculative planning applications pour into the district.  And they propose that the council should sign up to membership of the Association of Drainage Authorities at a cost of £334 a year, so that it is at the forefront of collaborative working on drainage and flooding, issues of critical importance to East Cambridgeshire.

This would be paid for by scrapping the buffet served to councillors before Full Council meetings (£900 a year), and by a council tax rise of less than 3p per week at Band D — less than the current rate of inflation.

Liberal Democrat council group leader Lorna Dupré says: “We believe our amendment reflects residents’ priorities — supporting public transport, providing expert responses to planning applications in our countryside, and protecting our area from the risk of flooding.  There is no excuse in these straitened times for the public purse to be paying for a councillors’ buffet, and a below-inflation 3p a week rise in council tax — the first in a number of years — would be well-spent on the proposals we have outlined.”

The amendment will be proposed at the meeting of East Cambridgeshire District Council tonight (Thursday 21 February 2019).