Happy New Year

2022 - A Year of Opportunities for Woking - Our New Year's Resolution

With Local Elections taking place in May 2022 we are looking forward to the opportunity to deliver the positive changes that a Liberal Democrat led Council can bring to Woking.

A change in control will make it possible for Woking Borough Council to move away from previous aspirations to be a major property developer.

This cannot happen overnight. We will have to find a route out of the complex and expensive financial legacy of previous administrations. Our successful motion for an independent review of the Borough's finances, due to report in January, will start to give us the facts we need to take important and essential decisions. At £1.9billion, and climbing, Woking's borrowings make it one of the most debt-ladened authorities in the country, as reported by The Sunday Times.

What we can, and will, promise to do is to put an end to the culture of secrecy which has surrounded so many important Council decisions. We will make sure that Consultation is real and the results are listened to and heeded.

Now, more than ever before, we need to put the environment at the heart of all we do. Woking Council supported our declaration of a climate emergency over 2 years ago. We will focus on achieving net zero, working with and involving local people, to make Woking a truly green Borough.

Woking is a diverse Borough with a densely populated Town Centre surrounded by villages and communities each with different needs and priorities. We will extend the Master Plan concept, which we championed for the Town Centre, to take into account and balance these different demands.

We will soon be publishing our full Manifesto for the May elections which will be available here on our web site. We hope you will return to read it.

In the meantime, we wish all of Woking's residents a very Happy Christmas and New Year.

Cllr Ann-Marie Barker

Borough Group Leader, Woking Liberal Democrats

Julian Keeley

Chair, Woking Liberal Democrats