Derby Liberal Democrats

Parking and Crossings are priorities

Littleover's has two highway priorities being agreed for the coming year. One is to introduce more parking restriction to improve traffic flow, for example at the top of Pastures Hill. The second is to study and design at least one extra main road crossing point.

Local councillors will be asked for more information on both of these in the coming months, so please share your thoughts.

It's over a year since the speed limit on Rykneld Road from Hillsway to the Hollybrook Pub was reduced to 30mph. Speeds have reduced, but not as far as ideal. The mean average speed is now 31mph. Some of those still speeding have been written to or fined by the police.

Several people have asked about more 30mph signs. The Council is not allowed to put up more 30mph roundel signs as frequent lamp posts alone mean 30.

Muirfield Dr bus stop

Lucy Care has again been told by the Council that there are no plans to remove this bus stop. If plans are done, local councillors will be consulted. Many local people had emailed Lucy around the New Year with their comments about the bus stop. Lucy passed these to the Highways team, and the team seem to have had second thoughts. One resident said "Lucy has done a great job making our Labour run Council see sense. I was gob-smacked when the Labour candidate claimed it was all his work. And Lucy and the Lib Dems are there for us all year round, not just when an election's coming."

Twenty-one months ago voters gave their views in an advisory referendum on the European Union. What has happened since?

1. The value of the pound has fallen, meaning food and many other goods are costing more.
2. Businesses are making plans - and already moving staff - to other EU countries, meaning jobs in local services are also threatened and government gets less tax.
3. Rather than there being more money for the NHS, there is less - and staff are harder to recruit. Waiting lists are rising.
4. It is 20 months after the referendum and nearly 12 months after 'Article 50' divorce process was started by Theresa May, with support from Jeremy Corbyn. Theresa May has made little progress in even defining what she wants to achieve.
5. More and more people are saying Brexit is a mistake, including: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and John Major, big business (the CBI), manufacturing sectors like automotive and aerospace, universities, creative industries, environmental groups, food producers, etc., etc. - and the leaders of almost every other country.

Back in 2005 Derby City Council was ground-breaking. We were one of the first Councils to embrace the need to address climate change.

The then leader of the Council decided that a good way to spread awareness of the importance of tackling climate change was for staff to see the newly released Al Gore film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. In rather different times, there has not been the same level of engagement in Al Gore's second film - 'An Inconvenient Sequel'. Times are different and this has not made the same impact - although the urgency for action is clearly growing.

A group of local residents, Cllr Joe Naitta and Danielle Lind have been trained by the Police to use speed cameras. They regularly go out checking vehicle speeds on local roads where there is a known problem with speeding cars. E.g. Littleover Lane, Blagreaves Lane, Oaklands Avenue, Valley Road and Normanton Lane.

Whether wanting to buy a rail ticket, renew your car insurance or buy home energy, life can be so complex that there are now websites around to help with what used to be a simple task.

In hindsight it is therefore not surprising that leaving the EU is turning out to be a lot more complex that was being suggested by Leave campaigners. And the Government has set up - and staffed - a department to guide us through this process.

At the Full Council meeting on 6th March Lib Dem Group Leader Cllr Ruth Skelton asked the Labour Cabinet member for the correct numbers of Statements of Special Educational Need that still have to be converted into Education Health Care Plans. The figures that have been given have varied from day to day. On 23rd January 2018 the Council's Strategic Director wrote to the Department of Education and told them 386 were still to be done. The next day the Cabinet member Cllr Russell told Full Council that the figure was 644.

Blagreaves Library

DHA is an organisation that wants to take on the running of the 10 libraries that Labour don't want the Council to run. It is still in talks with the Council about the terms on which the hand-over could happen. It is reported that DHA want to take on the libraries one at a time. We don't know where Blagreaves Library would be on that time frame.