Liberal Democrat – Autumn Conference 2021

Imogen at Autumn Conference 2021

Imogen at Autumn Conference 2021

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:

  1. Boosting Small Businesses and Jobs in a Post Pandemic Economy.
  2. Dignity, Care and Choice at the end of life
  3. Solving the supply chain crisis.

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

Pride in Wokingham

Wokingham Sunset

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.

Lockdown Playground

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.

The Matthewsgreen Playground is open.

Budget Council

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.



Maintenance of Garages owned by Wokingham Borough Council

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: