South West Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats

In what Liberal Democrat Councillors are labelling as a mean-spirited move the Conservative-run County Council has vetoed a move to allow all schools in Hertfordshire to ask for gritting salt to help keep school routes and schools open.

Only those schools more than 100 metres from a County Council designated salt gritting route can apply for free salt from the Council.

Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst proposed at last Monday's Highways Panel at County Hall that all schools, irrespective of their location, should be able to get the salt to help them. His plan, backed by Labour, was voted down by the Conservatives.

"This is mean spirited and means a two tier system. Many urban schools in town centres are within 100 metres of a gritting route but the roads and pavements next to schools are not part of that because they are on a side road. This creates a hazard for children so even if the school and parents wanted to help out they would have to find the salt and grit themselves. That is wrong!" said Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst.

The West Hertfordshire Liberal Democrat Local Party held their second successful Summer Garden Party on the evening of Tuesday 9th August at Binghams Park, Potten End Hill between Potten End and Water End. The area covered by the West Herts Local Party comprises Hemel Hempstead, Chorleywood, Rickmansworth, Croxley and Berkhamsted & Tring.

The recycling of waste rubber and plastic has been going on for years of course - but, thanks to financial support from the EU, Rosehill Polymers in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, has benefitted from business loans from Finance Yorkshire to develop new technology and new products and new production machinery to increase both its capacity and its product range. This has enabled Rosehill to break into new markets in Europe and elsewhere.

There is to be a Dacorum Council by-election in Adeyfield West, Hemel Hempstead on 29th September.

Adeyfield West is a two-councillor ward and following the 2015 election one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat councillor, Ron Tindall, were elected.

The present By Election has been caused by the death of the Conservative Councillor.

Plans to build a link between the A5 and the M1 under the Coalition Government's "Roads for Prosperity" Programme when Liberal Democrat Norman Baker was the Under Secretary of State for Transport kicked off with a Public Enquiry in February 2012 and, after a delay caused by a budget review, work started in March 2015.

There were only two local council by elections this week.

In the first, Liberal Democrats won a town council seat from the Conservatives in East Sussex.

In the second Labour gained a seat from the Communists in Fife.

Hailsham Town Council, East Ward
Liberal Democrat Alexa Clarke 186 56.2%
Independent 98 29.6%
Conservative 47 14.2%
Majority 88
Lib Dem Gain from Conservative

Yes, Britain's been doing very well recently - or at least until Brexit came along to spoil everything. From 2000 to 2015 UK's GDP rose by 4 trillion pounds.

You may be looking around wondering where it all went. Well almost everybody got a little bit of the action and almost everybody's living standards improved.

There was once an old play where a middle-aged, middle-class English couple stray into the wrong type of "restaurant" on holiday abroad. When the "waiter" proposes some interesting "dishes" their response is, "No sex please, we're British."

Are we getting a similar response on our behalf from our new Minister for Justice and her Tory friends concerning our rights?

Cllr Nick Hollinghurst, who represents Tring and the Villages on Hertfordshire County Council, recently received a mailing from The Samaritans and was shocked by what he read. "Did you know that suicide is the biggest cause of death in young people? I didn't and I'm shocked to find that out.

"According to the Office for National Statistics over 1,500 young people took their own lives in 2014. Furthermore The Samaritans estimate that as many as six young people in every classroom have considered suicide. This is backed up by an NUS survey, as quoted by the Guardian, and the Independent who reported that student suicides are at their highest level since 2007."

What's the Pacific Ocean got to do with a country which doesn't even care about Europe - a continent just 24 miles away? Well, like it or not the UK is still on the same planet as the Pacific, and atmospheric and ocean water mixing will ensure that events down there will have an effect on us up here.