The Kilburn Rose

The lying Lib Dems are set to break another election promise by
raising your council tax by a whopping 4.9 per cent.

This is despite the Lie Dems and their Tory puppetmasters having
already made swingeing cuts to meals on wheels, services for children
with disabilities and young people with learning difficulties, youth
services and school iåmprovement services.

In addition, they planned to close the Kilburn One Stop Shop (which
they renamed the One Stop Service) on March 2 – at short notice and
without consultation. Labour "called-in" the executive decision and a
temporary extension to the service in Dyne Road has been won. The Lib
Dems plan to let the Dyne Road site and are making nebulous promises
that Kilburn will get a replacement service sometime next year.
Meanwhile residents will have to traipse up to Willesden. A similar
process is happening in Kingsbury.

You may remember that the Lib Dems main campaign issue during the
Parliamentary by-election and election (which landed us with Sarah
Teather as MP) was fly-tipping. Along with graffiti, it also formed a
central plank of the local election campaign last year. Now we are
seeing the Lib Dems' "policy" on the issue – they plan to scrap the
council's free special collection service for up to five bulky items
three times a year for every household. It will be replaced by a
"service" costing a whopping £25 a time. Anyone fancy a bet on what
this will do to the amount of rubbish dumped on our streets?

Of course, some will pay the charge – the elderly, disabled and
others who are unable or unwilling to dump their items on the nearest
street corner.

The Lie Dems and their Tory chums have also put the Kilburn town
centre management scheme under threat by withdrawing a £30,000
contribution to the partnership with Camden.

Councillor Mary Arnold says: "The risk is that the scheme will be
Camden driven next year and will be abandoned the following year –
resulting in increased crime, poor street design, reduced external
funding for the town centre and no co-ordinated services."