"Council plan - could do better" - Brooks

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 8th Mar 2007

Councillor Jeff Brooks has pointed out alarming errors in the Tory council plan

Councillor Jeff Brooks has criticised the council plan for 2007-11 which was brought before a meeting of full council held last week. Poor grammar, incorrect information and spelling and unambitious targets led to the Liberal Democrat Group abstaining on the vote to adopt the plan as the way forward for West Berkshire Council over the next four years. Lib Dem Leader Jeff Brooks explained why he is looking forward to having an opportunity to improve the plan in the near future:

"The Tories described their plan as 'ambitious' which frankly I think was extremely generous. The targets set for the district ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Parts of the document do not even outline how they will measure improvements against the targets set. For example, in 2011 the aim is to improve user satisfaction with the road network by only 5% over the 2004/5 levels. Why are we not aiming higher to provide a better standard for West Berkshire?"

Councillor Brooks also harbours major concerns about significant inconsistencies and shortcomings with the plan.

"It worries me that the Tories have put the cinema back and even now cannot clearly commit to delivering it - according to this plan they will only 'facilitate' it in 2008. This is simply not good enough and the people deserve better. Some of it is just plain wrong - in 2007 they are pledging to raise recycling rates to 21% when we are already recycling 23%! In some places they are just promising to 'improve' a service - in other areas they are aiming to raise standards by 25.1% - they not being consistent in their target setting."