Nichola Harrison

The County Council’s ruling Conservatives have chosen to add millions of pounds to the Council’s Reserves rather than spend them on front-line public services. Underspends from last year and new grant money will sit in the bank rather than go towards making up some of the drastic cuts in vital services that have been seen in recent years.

As Resources spokesperson for the Lib Dems, Nichola developed a Mini-Budget, put in a motion to Council in July, to spend £1.8million of these funds on pavement and road repair, yellow lines and parking schemes, services for young people and climate change projects in schools. These and many other County Council services are deperately short of money following repeated budget cuts - Cambridgeshire spends less on youth services than any other county council.

The proposal would have added £1 million for road and pavement repairs, yellow lines and other parking and safety schemes, £250,000 for youth services, £250,000 to support the county’s Post Office network and £300,000 for energy saving projects in schools.

The motion was defeated by the Conservative majority who stated that they preferred to keep the money for a rainy day. In a statement to the Cambridge News, Nichola said:

“We accept, of course, that it is essential for the Council to keep sensible reserves, but the Council agreed on the level of reserves as recently as February. Extra money is now available and it is not right to hoard it. There are a hundred ways to make good use of this money, especially on services like road repair and traffic management where the budgets have been repeatedly cut over recent years. And the Council spends less on youth services than any other shire county, which is a disgrace.”