Tory Assault on Democracy reaches Surrey County Council

5.41.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 28th Apr 2009

Cllr Hazel Watson

Following on from Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Conservatives' introduction of the "Zero Debate Policy" which allows the Conservative Council Leader to claim items are non-controversial and don't need to be discussed, the Conservative assault on democracy has now hit Surrey County Council.

Conservative run Surrey is one of the worse performing councils in the country, having recently received a 1 star (lowest) rating for some of its children's services - including child protection.

The opposition Lib Dems had called for a debate to discuss the council's failings, however the debate on the failures of the Conservative Administration and the millions of Council Taxpayers' money wasted was vetoed by the Conservatives.

The ruling Tory group shamelessly refused to allow the debate saying that they did not have enough information from officers to debate the subject adequately.

Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr Hazel Watson said that millions of pounds had been wasted on at least 12 areas including the failed Business Delivery Review (BDR) and failure to manage the Highways contract.

" The Conservative administration should be held accountable and answerable to Surrey residents for their actions and for their failure," she said. "It is shocking and undemocratic that a supposedly democratically elected body, the County Council, is being gagged by the Tories.

"The administration is in denial and is not facing up to the problems it has created within Surrey, nor accepted responsibility for them," she added. "This Tory administration is unfit to govern the County Council. It is time for change at County Hall. Only the Liberal Democrats offer a positive alternative to the failure, secrecy, waste of money and poor services provided by the Conservative administration. Surrey residents deserve much better."