Ribble Valley Conservatives welcome the visit of the former party chairman and now Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Caroline Spellman to Clitheroe on 14th May 2009 . As part of the local government campaign to capture Lancashire County Council ,which is one of the Conservatives top targets , Caroline Spellman is visiting Clitheroe to campaign in support of John Hill , the former leader of the Ribble Valley Borough Council, who is seeking to capture this target seat from the Liberal Democrats. Ken Hind senior Vice Chairman commented ''In Lancashire the Lib Dems have only 4 seats on the Council out of 84 and cannot possible on their recent local government showing in the the County do anything but help Labour. At present the makeup of the Lancashire County Council is Labour 43 , Conservatives 33 , Liberals 4 Greens 1 and 3 independents. ''The result in Clitheroe will be a weather vane as to party support in the County . If the results in the local government elections in 2007 are repeated Lancashire will turn blue on June 4th. Prior to the 2007 elections we held no borough council seats in Clitheroe but we won 2 and came very close in others. ''After 28 years of Labour control in Lancashire it is time for change in the county as in the rest of the country. Deputy Leader of the Conservative County Council Group and Chairman of the Ribble Valley Conservatives Albert Atkinson commented ; ''The main issues in the election will be the need to have competent financial management at the helm of a County Council with 44,000 employees and spending power of £1.6 billion . We see the need to help hard pressed families in a recession by freezing the council tax in 2010-11, altering Labour’s spending priorities to give better value for money , cutting waste improving the quality of service we provide in schools, youth services, help for the elderly and spend more on road maintenance. We recognise a special responsibility to make sure there are no ‘Baby P’ cases in Lancashire by having a total review of social services . ‘'The recession has brought new challenges and we are conscious that a future Conservative government will scrap most of the unelected regional quangos which control economic development and give the lead role to elected local councils .One of our main priorities will be to lead Lancashire out of this deep recession, made worse by this tired and incompetent government, led by Gordon Brown .'' Promoted printed and published on behalf of John Hill and Albert Atkinson by Michael Ranson all of 9 Railway View , Clitheroe BB7 2HA |