Kingsbridge

Devon County councillor Julian Brazil will be writing a regular column for 999Kingsbridge. Here is his first installment.

It's that time of the year when we are setting the budget for the district and county council. As a Liberal Democrat I am opposed to the council tax and want to introduce a system that is based on ability to pay. For many local people on fixed incomes, like pensions, we know how unfair this tax is. At the county council we have managed to keep the rise to 3.9 per cent this year. For the district council the increase is 4.5 per cent.

At county funding for flood prevention of our roads has increased by £2m. We are getting more and more heavy rain due to climate change. You have probably seen the increase in the number of gully cleaning lorries out on our roads.

The Youth Service has been given extra funds to provide activities for our young people. There have been a number of successful schemes across the county, particularly in the South Hams, where Friday and Saturday night activities for young people have seen a large drop in crime rates. We strongly believe that with 'things to do' we can greatly reduce the amount of crime and anti-social behaviour involving young people.

In Devon, the Government gives us less money for our schools than almost anywhere else in the country. We come 146th out of 149 education authorities in respect of central Government funding. The Government do give us £8m pounds to help transport our children to school in the more rural areas - but the amount we actually spend on school transport is £23m! As a result we have decided to use the county's central funds to make sure our children have the education they deserve.

The district council had an appalling grant from Government and we were faced with a number of difficult decisions. Fortunately, we were able to persuade the Conservative administration not to close many of our public toilets nor to cut the support to the ring-and-ride service around Totnes.