Steven Lambert

This week the Tory cabinet met and discussed how the AVDC budget is facing deep trouble and that there is a funding gap of £1.5 million. What is now not in doubt is that services will have to be cut for vale residents. 

Since the transfer of the council houses to VAHT, this council has had a massive amount of money in the bank which it could use to invest in the Vale to improve community centres, play parks and recycling services. Instead the Tories have squandered over £45 million on a Theatre – which we will all own but not earn anything from.   

This week at the cabinet meting the Tories went ahead and approved their hair brained scheme for a new £12 million Council chamber (which will only get used 8 times a year by the 59 District Councillors!) and a new office block at the Gateway – which is outside the centre of town for nearly all the council staff leaving the town centre devoid of any meaningful council services.  

In a week that AVDC lost £3 million in the failed Icelandic Bank fiasco and possibly more in other ‘investments’ you really have to wonder what they have been playing at. The interest earned by investing the house sale money properly could keep council tax down and allow the Council to pump money into the local economy and deliver infrastructure improvements for all residents. The Tories have not been mending the roof while the sun was shining. They have been looking after their legacy.  

At the Resources scrutiny committee this week I put it to the cabinet member responsible for finance that the council chamber should be scrapped. I will do so again and again until they see sense.  Now is not the time for legacy buildings. Now is the time to look after the people you serve.

You have to ask your self who is really running AVDC and what on earth they have in their mind about our past and our future. At the September District Environment scrutiny meeting the Tories tried a double whammy.  

Firstly to get rid of the Shipton conservation site, which would have seen the first ever removal of a designated conservation site in the District. Thankfully, the Liberal Democrats where successful at getting them to reconsider these plans which would have seen the loss of a beautiful vale village. We now have to wait for a further report from officers and a Cabinet Member decision before we know that Shipton is safe. 

Secondly, the Tories used their majority to push through a disastrous plan to ruin one of the last remaining ancient monuments in Bucks. It seems that the only place the officers think a new crematorium should go is virtually on top of the Scheduled Ancient Monument at Quarrendon. 

The Liberal Democrats argued that that if a crematorium is really needed then it must be moved further away to the north east and across the relief road that is to be built between Berryfields and Weedon Hill to protect the historical site. The Berryfields and Weedon Hill development sites are so close and that already we have fought to move the releif road by 30m away from the historic site. It must be protected or it wil be lost forever. 

Despite a letter from English Heritage saying that “it is unlikely that any development could be accommodated her without having an unacceptable impact upon the significance of the monument… we would have no choice but to object to the allocation of this area for the development…”  But not one Tory in the meeting argued against protecting the site or asked further questions on the plans. Instead the Tories voted against the Liberal Democrats and approved the plans to the next stage.  

It’s not enough that the Tories are ripping the heart out of Aylesbury with costly pet projects like the Theatre and Council office building programmes, but they are also determined to destroy our heritage across the Vale.

The Quarrendon protection scheduling notice web link  www.buckscc.gov.uk/moderngov/mgIssueHistoryHome.asp?IId=5806