SIR, — I refer to the recent announcement by the County Council's Liberal Democrat minority Administration that post-16 student transport charges are to be scrapped from later this year.
As a Borough and County councillor representing rural wards, I strongly agree that the charges, imposed by Labour a number of years ago, are unfair on post-16 students (and their families) who live in countryside communities.
Indeed, I stood for e
lection in May 2008 promising to support any moves to abolish the charges.
You may be forgiven for thinking that I would therefore be patting the Lib Dems on the back for this move.
However, I believe that the minority Administration has not fully considered the effect of its announcement.
Whilst the scrapping of the charges will be popular, the Administration has to accommodate the costs within the overall school transport budget, which is already fairly stretched. That is coupled with the Lib Dem manifesto pledge not to impose above inflation increases in Council Tax.
Last week, the 'Herald' reported Coun Andrew Tebbutt (a member of the County Council's Lib Dem Executive) saying of the new Council that the "unknown financial situation hangs like a cloud over us."
He went on to say: "We can't say we'll give a certain amount to a project or service because we can't be sure that we can afford it, so we have to be very careful."
What, therefore, has changed? Is there already a chasm opening up in the new Administration? Perhaps 'popular versus prudent?'
We all wanted to see the end of the post-16 transport charges, but their demise had to be properly budgeted for and responsibly implemented.
The Conservative commitment to see the charges abolished was, of course, within the context of ensuring the cash could be found to pay for it.
We explained that this may be possible by making efficiency savings in other areas and by dropping costly plans for 27 new local quangos, as proposed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Scrapping the charges could cost up to an estimated £1.3m. The Liberal Democrats have not explained where the money is coming from and, when the Council already faces a massive financial black-hole, I would suggest this is indicative of a typical Lib Dem Administration, where the consequences of populist actions are not fully considered.
Coun DAVID J. TOWNS
Mitford
Morpeth
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