Daisy Cooper with Cllr Ellie Hudspith

The results of yesterday’s by-election are set out below:

Green Party 98

UKIP 16

Ellie Hudspith – Liberal Democrat 916 ELECTED

Labour 193

Conservative 388

Chris White said: ‘I am delighted to welcome Ellie to the team. She has been an excellent candidate and I am sure she will be an excellent councillor.

‘The Conservatives pressed us hard in this by-election, having previously taken no interest in the ward. The Lib Dem message of “Service and action all year round, not just at elections” clearly hit home and well over 50% of those who voted backed Ellie and the Clarence Lib Dem team.’

Chris’s speech on refugees: 40 seconds in.
http://bbc.in/2cquvhN

There are still problems across the district despite assurances from the County Council that all is in hand.

This photo is from Hamilton Road:

There are also still streets which have not had weed treatment, like Liverpool Road and Marlborough Gate.

All of these issues are being taken up with the County Council but let us know if there are any others.

The County Council has announced its works for 2017-2018. These are separate from works selected by Chris, which form only 15% of the highways spending in St Albans Central Division.

We are pleased to see Vernon Close and Royal Road are now included since both roads are in an increasingly poor state: a great deal of lobbying was needed to get them onto this list.

Click on the list below for further details.

1718 Draft2 Jul2016 Div_45

These are supposed to be happening on Monday – together with the road closure – but the letter says August. We have contacted the County Council to sort out the confusion.

They will try and go ahead with the new works and say they will issue a new letter on Monday morning.

This is hardly a satisfactory outcome.

By last night, 6,000 people had joined and numbers are continuing to rise, driven by social media.

“A lot of people have felt this very deeply,” said Tim Farron. “They are concerned that the Brexit leaders clearly had no economic plan and are understandably fearful about what lies ahead for jobs and investment. But more even than that, these new members want to demonstrate that Britain remains an internationalist, open and optimistic country.

“We are now the only party committed to keeping our place in Europe. As the other two parties leave the field of battle, it falls to us to fight for our European future.”

1. If you have a postal vote and have not yet returned it, you can take it into ANY polling station within the St Albans district up until 10pm on Thursday

2. If you have an emergency on Thursday eg work or medical, you can contact the council and get an emergency proxy vote up until 5pm on Thursday.

01727 819294

http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/elections/voting/

3. You do NOT need your polling card to vote. If you do not know where your polling station is you can call St Albans District Council on 01727 819294 or call 01727 855523 to reach the local Stronger In team.

The Lib Dems have promised to accelerate the modernisation process at St Albans District Council in order to make it more useful to local residents.

Lib Dem Group Leader Chris White said: ‘The council is still absolutely yoked to the idea of residents having to phone through problems and seems to forget that in this day and age the majority of residents would prefer to engage with routine issues on-line – leaving the phones free for those who do not have access to computers or who need a proper discussion.

‘Currently the council receives 2000 phone calls each working day. This is far too many and the whole organisation needs to be restructured to make it more friendly to residents and more cost efficient: it is crazily expensive if an issue like a missed bin is dealt with by phone or even by email.

‘By contrast, the area where people really do need to have conversations – planning – remains underresourced and underperforming. There is a constant stream of complaints about this department and resources need to be freed up from other areas to make sure it starts to deliver a proper service.’