Cllr Rowan Cole

An election and a new Civic Year means a Council reshuffle. Councillors can take the opportunity to move on todifferent committees, explore other areas of debate and take on additional responsibilities.

I am honoured to have been elected by the Council to serve as the new Vice-Chairman of the Licensing Committee and very much look forward to the job ahead. The Licensing committee has a vast responsibility but is probably best known for its regulation of alcohol and taxi licences.

In addition to my duties with the Licensing Committee, I will continue to serve on the Walton Town Centre Advisory Group, the Elmbridge Sports Council and as the Surrey Council’s Representative on the South East Reserve Forces and Cadets’ Association.

I would like to express my warmest thanks to everyone that supported the Conservatives in Elmbridge following therecent General and Local Elections. Dominic Raab has been elected as the Conservative MP for Esher & Walton with a dramatic majority of nearly 19,000. Locally we gained an additional seat on the council strengthening our position and allowing us to continue the work we have been doing in Elmbridge.

The Prime Minister sent an email this morning to party members and I wanted to share parts of it with you. We are entering an historic period of Government with our new partners, the Liberal Democrats.

“Thank you for all your patience over these past few days. I know that you must have found it frustrating not knowing exactly what was going on while negotiations continued. However, the great news is that after 13 years, our party is back in government.

We have seen the election of nearly 100 extra MPs, we have gained more seats than in any election since 1931 and we are now the party of government once again. No-one should underestimate the scale of our achievement in such a short space of time, and it would not have been possible without your support and commitment to the cause.

Second, I want to tell you what I can about the agreement we have made with our new partners in government, the Liberal Democrats. As I said after the election last week, more than anything else Britain needs strong, stable and decisive government at this point in our history. And it was in the national interest that we achieved this on a secure basis.” DAVID CAMERON, PRIME MINISTER

Once again thank you for your support on May 6^th and I look forward to meeting all the new Councillors elected in the coming weeks.

We are half way through the most pluralistic election campaign for decades and I have been lucky enough to go around to a number of marginal constituencies to lend a hand. Visiting different parts of the country has made me understand how much the party has to offer to the people of Britain.  For the first time in years there is a clear choice between the main parties and what they believe in. The choice, starkly put, is no matter how you vote this election is between The Conservatives and The Labour Party; you have a vote for change or a vote for more of the same. Voting Liberal Democrat will result in a Labour Victory. It’s a harsh reality but one the British public are quickly awakening to. For real change the only way you can vote to get it is Conservative. But what do we stand for? Well that’s the easy question.

We stand for returning power to the people: we call it the Big Society. This is about giving all of us the power in our communities to make a difference and work for a better lifestyle for all of us. “These plans involve redistributing power from the state to society; from the centre to local communities, giving people the opportunity to take more control over their lives.” (The Conservative Party Manifesto 2010: pp. 37-39) We would achieve this through, the National Citizen Service, neighborhood groups, the right to Veto your Council Tax and elected Police Commissioners to name but a few steps. But the Big Society is only the first step; we need to fix our broken Economy.

We have been through the most dramatic economic downturn since World War II. “We can’t go on with the old model of an economy built on debt. Britain needs a new economic model. Saving and business investment must replace reckless borrowing as the foundation of growth.” (The Conservative Party Manifesto 2010: p3) We will achieve a stronger economy by immediately drawing up an emergency budget that will focus on repaying this countries enormous debt straight away, whilst protecting as many services as possible and ensuring that NHS spending is ring-fenced. Proposed Conservative cuts for this year would equal just £6bn this year. This would be achieved by freezing public sector pay for one year (excluding the 1 million lowest paid workers,) capping public sector pensions above £50k, cutting Ministers pay and other efficiency savings. All of this is detailed in The Conservative Party manifesto.

The manifesto is the most comprehensive of all the Political Parties and represents 118 pages of pure policy. It also represents a stark reality to all voters that there really is only one choice at the fort coming election to protect society, protect the economy and protect our future. If you vote Labour or Liberal Democrats you will get more of the same for 5 more years; more economic mismanagement, more erosion of civil liberties, more political corruption.

Vote Conservative on May 6^th for the change this country is crying out for and the brighter future we all deserve, ”A country is at its best when the bonds between its people are strong and when the sense of national purpose is clear…So my invitation today is this: join us, to form a new kind of government for Britain.” (David Cameron, Conservative Party Leader)

For the third time in 4 years, Elmbridge Conservatives have proposed – and successfully voted through – a 0% Council Tax increase on the Elmbridge portion of the overall Council Tax. This means that a Band D property will pay £3.83 for the services the Council offers. This is all against a backdrop of tremendous financial pressures on the public purse and the need for our Council to absorb an additional £1.8m worth of budgetary pressures. But not only have we frozen Council tax we continue to protect and improve the services we offer residents. In his speech to Council, Cllr. Roy Taylor (Leader) said that it is our duty “to protect the vulnerable” and that Elmbridge are “committed to protecting our front line services.”

Every local authority receives a grant from central government that usually forms a large bulk of the council’s income; this is referred to as the formal grant and varies from authority to authority. Elmbridge receives the lowest grant allocation in Surrey and subsequently one of the lowest in the country at just £47.21 per resident. Woking receive £72.31 per head and Guildford £63.04 and the Shire District average is £78.40! But despite all this we continue to promote quality services and improvements.

Elmbridge continues to improve the borough. Funds have been allocated for a major revamp of Walton High Street; the Civic Improvement Fund has also assisted small business develop in this harsh economic period; the Borough has also taken over grass cutting services in Elmbridge and resulting in more frequent maintenance of our roadsides which are also supplemented by the “Street Smart” teams who continue to respond to residents’ calls for action. We have delivered the new state of the art synthetic turf pitch at the Xcel Leisure Centre. Our recycling targets have even doubled since the Conservatives took over the Administration in 2006.

We have achieved what we promised – sound financial management. We have frozen Council tax but continued to improve and protect services. Times are tough and there will continue to be difficult decision to make in the years ahead about the state of public finances. But Elmbridge Conservatives will continue to work hard to keep Council tax increases minimal, if not frozen, and front-line services unwavering.

I spent today in the Conservatives new call centre: GenVA based at Central office. I have never telephoned canvass before and this was a chance for me to really get to grips with the new and diverse ways we are communicating with the electorate. What was clear to me when speaking with people is that David Cameron really is the man of choice for the vast majority. The Conservatives under Cameron have already started to prove themselves to the public in Councils across the country.

We are the largest party of local government in Britain, with almost 10,000 councillors across Britain.

Conservative councils are greener, helping to improve the local environment and protect green spaces in our towns and villages. They are safer, fighting the crime, anti-social behaviour, vandalism and graffiti that ruin people’s quality of life. And, at a time when people are being hit by the economic downturn, they offer better value for money.

We believe strongly in local democracy. Too many decisions which affect local communities are currently taken by officials in Whitehall. A Conservative Government will change that by:

• Giving more powers and freedoms to local councils, and making town halls more accountable to local people
• Abolishing Labour’s quango state, for example by scrapping the unelected regional assemblies
• Giving councils greater control over the spending of money that they receive from Whitehall
• Allowing local residents to veto high council tax rises in order to keep council tax down

Our aim is to empower and embolden people to take action themselves, whether as individuals or as members of independent organisations, voluntary groups and social enterprises.

The recent weather and heavy snow fall (at least in Surrey terms) caused mass disruption to all vital and essentialservices in the country. Trains, Road, Airports, Shops, Schools and many other organisations and other parts of the national infrastructure came to a standstill. Surrey was no less affected than any other part of the country and temperatures continued to fall.

The weather, albeit still poor, has improved and I wanted to take this opportunity to praise Elmbridge Council for the work it did to keep the services the council operated on the move. Meals on Wheels were delivered to customers, council functions continued and the rubbish was collected – even if there was a slight delay.

Well done Elmbridge!

I am pleased to accept this role and greatly look forward to the challenge. I will now have the opportunity to develop CF branches across the 11 Surrey Constituencies and to engage with young people across the county.

My pledges upon accepting this role are to:

• Develop branches in every single Surrey Constituency,
• Create a strong Surrey Area Team,
• Provide sustainable support to key seats, and,
• Increase membership across the area.

Another vital priority will be to make Conservative Future and the wider Party accessible to any young person in the County that wants to get involved.

With a General Election just months away it has never been a more exciting time to get involved. If you would like to know more, please contact me.

It is often said that a week is a long time in politics, so how long must a year feel? The last year seems to have scurried by quickly, but has seen many major changes in the Esher and Walton Conservatives. Ian Taylor, our lo cal MP, and Roy Taylor, Elmbridge Leader, announced that they would both be stepping down at the 2010 elections. The Esher and Walton consistency was for a time gripped by the Open Primary that was used to select our new Parliamentary Candidate, Dominic Raab. The Conservative Councillors a few weeks later selected their new leader John O’Reilly.

2009 has been a whirlwind for my political life. To name just a couple of things, at the start of the year was elected as President of the University of Surreys’ Conservative Society. As the year progressed I was placed on many new committees, including Licensing (which is fast becoming my favourite!) As the year comes to a close we cannot help but start to think of the next major political challenge, which will be the General Election and Borough Elections of 2010.

What will 2010 bring? What will be the major issues we as the Council or Conservatives will face? Only time will tell.

In the mean time, enjoy the snow!