At Wokingham Borough Council’s meeting, last week – I shared a speech on the government’s response to Ukrainian refugees. It’s not that we don’t have people wanting to help, here in Wokingham, it is that our governments response to the crisis is too slow and cumbersome – meanwhile people are suffering and dying.
If anyone was wondering where I have been over this weekend, I was at the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference. It is our opportunity to discuss and debate items of national importance and it is heard by our Parliamentarians and Lords. The outcomes of these Conferences provide the baseline policies for the party direction.
So what items did I speak on:
Other local Libdems spoke too – Cllr Prue Bray, Cllr Sarah Kerr & Cllr Tahir Maher all spoke eloquently on different subjects. If you want to see the full details of what was discussed, it can all be found here: https://www.youtube.com/libdem
I am proud of our Town Council. During the last year and a half, we have done our best to support everyone during lockdown. Given out grant money to those that needed it, fought to keep our parks clean and clear of rubbish, kept our market open for food sales, installed flowers and the Christmas tree, redeployed our staff to help out with vaccinations and carried on with the full democratic process and creatively thought of ways to support our town events.
Now that the shops are open again, we are doing our best to promote the town and make it a friendly place to visit. We are more than just banners and flowers.
During Lockdown you have to work a little harder to find the positives. Well yesterday, was one of those. After a lot of delay due to Covid 19 and getting safely signoffs, the developers of the Matthewsgreen estate were finally able to open the new children’s playground. There could be no ‘official’ opening, but I was lucky enough to be there when they did it.
Last Thursday, the 18th February, Wokingham Borough Council had its Budget Council meeting. This is the meeting where the Council set the Council Tax and decide on its spending for the the next year, with a plan for the following years.
The meeting was a four hour long virtual meeting, starting at 8pm- and after a couple of hours, it disintegrated to something similar to Handforth Parish Council’s efforts.
Our Council Tax payments need to go up, because of the large, Covid sized hole in the Council Finances. There has been no income from Leisure centres, only a tiny amount from car parking and licensing and the central government funding has not covered everything that we needed to do.
The key things that came out of this meeting were:
1) The Council’s borrowing will pass £3/4 Billion by the end of 2024.
2) There is no Covid Recovery Plan
3) Locating the right information in the Council Finance reports is a complex task.
4) Wokingham Town Centre Regeneration has, so far, not contributed any money to Wokingham Borough Council.
5) The current leadership ignores the constitution, which there to protect our residents too.
These are all things that we would seek to change if we were to get control of this council.
Uniting people with differing viewpoints is vital to a functioning human society and the Liberal Democrats have gone a step further in bringing people together in Wokingham. Next weekend, covering our local LGBT Pride event in Reading on the 31st August, the Rainbow flag will be raised on Wokingham town Hall and on the Wokingham Borough Council Offices.
It is a symbol of inclusion and acceptance for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people and we want then to feel acknowledged and included in Wokingham too. You will notice that many businesses in Wokingham will also flying rainbow flags and stickers, in support too.
Happy Pride day everyone!
It’s been an interesting few weeks for all of our Wokingham Liberal Democrat team. Our successes at Wokingham Borough Council are well publicised. We went from a group of 8 councillors to a group of 16. However, Wokingham is still Conservative controlled.
However, Wokingham Town Council has gone a slightly different path. It has 25 Councillors who are now 11 Liberal Democrats, 7 Conservatives, 4 Labour and 3 Independents. We are now No Overall Control with the Liberal Democrats as the largest group. It as been a long time coming and has certainly not been a Conservative majority in this century and for some time before that.
While I was the only Liberal Democrat Councillor for the last 4 years, I now find myself as the Leader of Wokingham Town Council and leader of the largest group. As a Wokingham native, it is something I will gladly do with honour.
One of our first tasks was identifying our new mayor. Lynne Forbes, one of our Independent Councillors, had shown an interest for the last couple of years and it quickly became clear that she was the best person for this role within our new council. The picture here is me happily signing her nomination to be mayor.
My hope is that all of our town councillors can continue to work together, find our common ground and use all of our talents for the good of Wokingham. That is where my leadership position will lie.
So, WBC Garage rents are going up by 3.49%. If you’ve ever seen these garages, they are usually in blocks near areas built as Social housing. They are often falling apart, shabby, damp and leaking. In some cases, demolishing them for extra parking space is a good move, but in others they are used by residents as storage. I don’t think anyone uses them to store cars any more.
The thing is, residents are paying around £600 a year for one. Where has this money going? It’s certainly not being used to maintain these garages. So, I raised the question at the WBC Executive meeting last Thursday:
If you don’t live in Evendons in Wokingham, you probably didn’t know about the Wokingham Borough Council by-election that was held on the 7th of February. This was a seat that was won by Liberal Democrat Councillor Helen Power in May 2018. Unfortunately, not long after her election, she was diagnosed with incurable cancer. She carried on for as long as she could, but shortly after Christmas she resigned.
In the midst of these sad circumstances, Sarah Kerr stepped up to fight for the seat. Despite the winter weather, local Liberal Democrats were all hands to the pump, helping her to win it. We were all rewarded by a very strong win of 63.1% of the vote – well done to Sarah for being a great candidate that everyone could get behind.
Evendons is the ward directly next to my own Emmbrook Ward. It covers most of Woosehill, the housing around Barkham Road from Molly Millars Lane to the Barkham border and the housing west of Finchampstead Road. If you combine it with the Labour Party win in Norreys last year, it is a very clear indicator that the way people are voting in Wokingham is changing. They are increasing fed up with the way that our local Conservatives have been behaving.
We are all here to serve the people who elected us first – not our party or ourselves.
Evendons by-election – February 2019
Imogen Shepherd-DuBey – Wokingham Borough Council
It was an eventful meeting, this month. Not only did the Council Leader resign as leader, one other Conservative Councillor went independent. We had a debate on the Barkham Square development, public questions about how Brexit will affect Wokingham Borough and the development of the land next to the Thames.
I managed to ask a question about how we can best manage the graffiti problems in the Woosehill Subway, the road resurfacing in Joel Park and why Jubilee Avenue was missed. I also raised the concerns about the lack of input into the sign off large contracts.
We debated and agreed three motions – a long awaited requirement to include sprinklers in ALL new school buildings, a motion on the handling protected trees and lastly, writing a letter from the Borough about our need to keep our Post Office services and protecting their jobs.