The Text of the Lib Dem Leaflet

My commentary

Liberal Democrats Focus Printed by T&WDLD, 13 St James St Okehampton, Published and Promoted by Alex Wood on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, all at 4 Kilworthy Hill, Tavistock PL19 0DP Alex Wood * Terry West * Peter Aizlewood Liberal Democrats want to scrap Council Tax Lib Dems want to replace Council Tax with a local income tax, based on your ability to pay, not the value of your home. Vote Lib Dem and we will take the campaign nationally! In Tavistock, about 30% of all residents are over 60, many on fixed incomes, many owning their own homes, many on low-income wages. Lib Dems understand how tight household bugdets are. A local income tax will save most people in Tavistock the burden of regular big Council Tax hikes. The Tories and Con-dependents at the Town Council "held down" their increase to "only" 10%. They then committed that money and more to their own offices. They are simply out of touch! Alex Wood says: "Lib Dems know that the quality of life does come at a price - one which everyone should be able to afford." More recycling, Less Council Tax! The more recycling, the less Land Fill Tax has to be paid. Lib Dems will raise the amount recycled, and help you reduce your Council Tax. Peter Aizlewood says: "We introduced re-cycling to West Devon and we will pick up on the slow progress of recent years. lib Dems will extend the scheme to plastics." Lib Dems tackle Traffic & Parking! We will get the Borough, County and Town Councils round the same table for the first time to tackle this together. We will consult residents seriously. Terry West says "We will increase the number of disabled parking spaces." Affordable Housing Only about half the number of affordable houses which the Borough says shold be built are actually being built. Lib Dems will hold developers to the planned 40% of any development. Alex Wood says "Can we expect Tories and Con-dependents to seriously resist developers?"

Motherhood & apple pie. I don't generally get into personal slanging matches, but, as you will see, this is a classic of that genre, so just for once, I'll show you, now that the election is over, what I could have spread around if I had used Lib Dem tactics against them. None of these guys lives in Tavistock South Ward. Alex lives in North Ward, Peter lives in Yelverton and Terry in Horrabridge. It's hard to see what this has to do with a local council election. Local Income Tax has been Lib Dem national policy since Pontius was a Pilot. You didn't have to "vote Lib Dem" for them to "take it nationally". Don't they have anything to say? This stuff is just regurgitated old hat. The reality is that, huff and puff as they may, Lib Dems aren't even close to being in contention for national government. The best they can hope for is to make a moderate showing in local elections in a few isolated, mostly rural, areas. This stuff is just padding. They churn out so much yellow paper that they have to fill it with something. All too often, they fill it with "knocking copy". As I am now demonstrating, that isn't difficult to do. As I hope I'm also demonstrating, it's meaningless drivel. The difference between them and me is that I'm admitting that I'm deliberately doing just that, in order to make the point. Moreover, I'm doing it after the election, so that maybe some of you will remember for next time. Claiming Credit - another Lib Dem Speciality It is true that Lib Dems in the 1991-95 and 1995-99 Borough Councils raised the profile of recycling and have supported and contributed to the work done by others to increase it. In the 1999-2003 council, an Independent and a Conservative councillor have been particularly active in carrying the work forward, with all-group support. Progress has not been "slow". Plastics are already on the agenda for recycling in West Devon. It will happen anyway and I have little doubt that the LD campaign group knows that. Makes good copy to appear to create a campaign for it, though, doesn't it? We've all tried to get the County Council on board on highways issues. How about Bedford Square and the Grenofen Gateway? Where were the Lib Dems when I was fighting those? Not on my side - which was, by a very large majority, your side. Click here to see how duplicitous the Lib Dem approach to Grenofen has been. Affordable housing is a very complicated issue. This statement is broadly true, but both policy and West Devon Homes are in place to address it. Lib Dems have been part of the West Devon team at the heart of it, but they aren't the only ones and shouldn't try to look as though only they are doing anything about it. Alex Wood may say what he pleases (as long as he doesn't defame people like me with untruthful insinuations), but the answer to his question is "Yes", actually. The 1999-2003 council has put in place the 40% social housing policy into the Local Plan (now at Public Enquiry as I write) and my Planning Committee is actually implementing it where it applies. Click here for WDBC's web site, whence you can follow the links to the Local Plan pages if you don't want to take my word for it. The question I might ask, given the stuff near the bottom of the next page of this Lib Dem leaflet, is, can we expect that what Lib Dems say in their election literature is actually true? Some of it is. The difference between them and me is that I'll admit that where it is so and not slag them off just because they are Lib Dems. You must make your own judgement as to whether they are as generous to their electoral opponents. Then you have a basis for deciding who you will trust with your vote. Fair comment?

Here is the back page - the one that I am complaining about. Click here to go straight to the damaging insinuation.

The Text of the Lib Dem Leaflet

My commentary

What our 3 opponents cost you Our 3 opponents are a "local" Tory [is it possible to have a team with 5 different names?!], a Tory party member who is an "Independent", and an "Independent" who regularly votes with ... well, you know who ... The Tory/Con-dependents forced through a 10% Tavistock Town Council Tax-take. Lib Dems proposed 2.8% at Town and Borough, the only group to do so. The Tory/Con-dependents "held it down" [their words] to 10% by cutting community grants by £10,000. Lib Dems fought these cuts. We will restore them all. These 3 then committed the Council to spending £260,000 [and rising] on their own offices. We will immediately review this project. Nothing justifies this amount. The office building today is worth £130,000 at most, after £250,000 was spent on it in 1989/90. No alternative community uses were considered by the Tories/Con-dependents. The Mayor, Marjorie Corner, yet another Tory sitting as an "Independent", signed the contracts for the work on the offices just over a week ago, regardless of your vote! She is not standing for re-election on May 1st. 3 other Con-Dependents who pushed this work through have also jumped ship ... lumbering the new council ... ... are you surprised? * Oh, and just for the record .... The 17.95% Council Tax rise was formally proposed by ... Christine Channon, Tory Leader at Devon County Council. How Borough Planning fails Tavistock One of our opponents has been Chairman of the Borough Planning Committee for 4 years. There "is no big local issue", he says. If re-elected, he says, he "will devote more time to his duties as Chairman". He needs to! What about these Tavistock decisions? The West Street Boxes. Go to West Street. See how these 3-feet steel box window extensions hanging over the street disfigure a fine building and destroy the historic vista up West Street itself. The Old Bank Building, No 1 Duke Street. For how long does this building have to remain out of use, blighting Bedford Square and staining the image of our fine town? The Town Hall Ceiling. This fell down over 2 years ago, limiting the use of the Town Hall. The Town Council has to find £76,000 to meet Borough-imposed Planning conditions. Affordable Housing. Only about half the affordable housing is being built which the Borough itself says it should. Our young people and less well-off are suffering. The Down Road Issue. At one point in the Local Plan, Down Road was designated for in-fill development, like so much of Tavistock. This proposal was quietly dropped. Why? Lib Dems will demand that planning powers be devolved by the Borough to a Tavistock local area planning committee. It happens elsewhere, why not here?

Fair Comment? This is political "fair comment" in a legal sense, though the author would actually be hard-pressed to find evidence that either of the Independents he is slagging off "regularly" vote with any political group, or even with each other. Here we go ... "Con-"dependent again. The only "con" is the one that the LibDem literature always tries to con you with. It just ain't true, folks. If I hear it much more often, I'll name the paid-up members of the Lib Dem party that have sat as Independent members of West Devon Borough Council in recent years. I could name a few others that have regularly voted with the LibDem group, too. As to the issues: the figures are wrong and half of the facts aren't true, either. Town first: I "moved" the 10% Town increase, because there was a group that wanted more. They might have forced that through if I hadn't pre-empted them. It is true that the LD group wanted to sell off Drake Road (more anon) and levy less. No way would they have got that through, so there was no point even thinking about it. The practical politics were that we could get 10% through, but not less. Now the Borough. The Lib Dems did not propose 2.8%. I did. By the way, it was 2.6%, actually, but close enough for Lib Dem work, I guess. From memory, Nick Waterhouse (LD) seconded me, but you can look that up yourself in the minutes if it really matters. Drake Road offices: click here for more about this. The Mayor had no authority to do other than sign contracts to give effect to a decision of Council. This is just puff and bluster. Devon County. So what did County Councillor Roy Connelly do about it? The leaflet is silent on that point. Why? Now here's the bit that lams into me. Good stuff, this! The first 4 points are valid debating issues, though they typically miss the planning issues, just as J Burnett MP did when he weighed in on the emotive side of the Milton Abbot school issue because it looked good, even though it was totally wrong in planning terms. We've "stood up to" the Bank Building's developer, who wanted to ruin the facade with a shop front. Yet this leaflet implies only LibDems stand up to developers. You can't have it both ways, sport! The Town Hall is listed and subject to the same planning issues as private developers with listed buildings. Should we treat the Town Council differently? There's an element of truth in this, but it ain't that simple. First, you have to have the policy in place: the Local Plan Public Enquiry is still running; then you have to have the development to pay for it, which raises other issues that LDs have a heap of trouble grappling with. Down Road. This is a straight lie. Click here to see the truth and why I am taking legal advice. My name for "Area Planning" is "Nimby's Charter". Your Planning Committee is a Borough Planning Committee. It's another con, just like the Con-dependent label that they throw around like confetti. Note they say only that they will "demand" it. Why don't they say "if elected, we will set up area planning"? Is this an attempt at an "honest" con. It is actually very unlikely that Lib Dems, once elected, would actually do this, because it would expose them too much when they have to make hard decisions. They hoped it would be a good vote-catcher, I suspect (but can't prove) that it would have been quietly fogotten had they got control of WDBC. Mercifully, they didn't, so we'll never know.

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