Broxtowe Liberal Democrats

Broxtowe Liberal Democrats have issued the following statement on 12th April 2012:

"On Wednesday and Thursday of this week an individual posted messages on Twitter making threats to cause serious harm to Councillor David Watts. The messages were of a particularly vile nature and have been reported to the police. Councillor Watts said:

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

1. Bramcote Lane Closure

From tomorrow there will be tram works on Bramcote Lane in Chilwell and so it will be closed to traffic in both directions at Sandby Court for the next two months. I've had a query already from a reader about how they can access the doctors surgery during this period and I'm checking on that. If anyone else is affected by this let me know and I'll include you in the answer when I get it. There will be diversions for the 14, 36 and 36A buses during this period as well.

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

1. Tax and benefit changes

I'm starting with a national news story this week for a change, but today sees the introduction of a huge number of changes to tax, benefits and health brought in by the coalition. Some of these are things I'm not desperately happy with and some of them are things that if we were in Government on our own we would not have done, but I am particularly proud of the changes to income tax that incurred today. As a result of specific Lib-Dem policies which we have been able to implement every taxpayer in Broxtowe will be paying £600 less income tax than they were in 2010, with some 5,000 paying no income tax at all. Next year the change will go up to £700 as we achieve our long term goal of having the first £10,000 anyone earns being tax free. I'm also pleased that Lib-Dem pressures led to alterations to the NHS changes to make it clear that competition should only ever be permitted as a means of facilitating improvements and not as an end in itself.

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. This week we've hit a new record for the number of readers that we have so thank you all for that.

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

1. Broxtowe Budget

Broxtowe Borough Council met last week to agree a budget for next year, and again it was a near unanimous vote. The headline figures are that Broxtowe council tax will not go up, council house rents are kept down, and there are no cuts to front line services. All the savings are being made by operating more efficiently. This is the third year in a row that there has been no increase in our council tax. There will unfortunately be a slight increase in council tax overall because the police commissioner has put up the police element of the council tax. I read also that Nottingham City (Labour) have put up their council tax by 1.9% and Rushcliffe (Tory) have put theirs up by over 4%, so I hope people will agree that they have got a good deal from Broxtowe. The only person not to support it on the council was one Labour member.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has closed the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in Brighton by calling on members to spread the message of the Party's commitment in Government to deliver a stronger economy and a fairer society.

In his keynote Leader's speech, Nick paid tribute to the work of the Party in winning the Eastleigh by-election, beating the Conservatives into third place and squeezing Labour while campaigning on the Lib Dem record of delivering in Government.