Councillor Ian McDonald's concern about the poor state of the borough's pavements is very welcome, but the flurry of self-publicity he has generated on the subject cannot be taken at face value. The fact is that the previous Liberal Democrat administration, of which he was a belated member, presided over a stark reduction of service in this area.
As bad as the Conservative administration which proceeded the Lib Dems in 1994 was (and it was pretty appalling), in their last years of office they spent considerably more on pavement repairs than Coun McDonald's pals did when they took control of the council.
Figures obtained from Kingston Council's engineering department show that in 1993/94, 0.74 per cent of expenditure went to pavement repairs and improvements. This dropped to 0.66 per cent in 1994/95, but in 1995/96, with the Lib Dems firmly in control, the figure was just 0.35 per cent - less than half that of 1993/94!
So don't be fooled by the Liberal Democrat's rediscovery of 'pavement politics', it looks likely to be due to a need to win lost votes.
TOBY FLUX
Ex Labour for Tolworth
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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