After an eventful budget setting day at Shire Hall, Gloucestershire Liberal Democrats managed to secure £649,000 of amendments to Gloucestershire County Council’s budget.
Successful changes to the budget included more money for local highway priorities, £150,000 to subsidise public transport, significant extra funding for public health priorities and a cancelling of cuts to services for people with physical disabilities.
The full breakdown of Liberal Democrat successes is:
- £265,000 additional funding for local highway priorities
- £150,000 to subsidise public transport that isn’t self-supporting
- £134,000 of cuts to services for people with a physical disabilities, scrapped
- £50,000 of funding to train more people in suicide prevention
- £50,000 to promote sexual health testing
Speaking on a successful day at the office, Cllr Hodgkinson, Lib Dem Group Leader, said:
“I am delighted that we have secured a raft of changes to the Conservative budget which will make a real difference to people’s lives. With huge year-on-year cuts to the Public Health budget, I am particularly pleased that we will be investing an additional £100,000 into key priorities; training frontline staff in suicide prevention and promoting sexual health testing.
“It is, however, disappointing to see that the Conservatives could not bring themselves to row back on ill-judged decisions on recycling centres and permit parking. I am sure the residents of Gloucestershire will make their dissatisfaction known in years to come.”