Conservative county council letting St Albans down

10.55.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 22nd Apr 2009

Liberal Democrat County councillors in Watford and St Albans have expressed astonishment over the county council's programme for road repairs.

The latest 'surface dressing' proposals for 170 schemes involve NO roads in Watford district whatever and, almost without exception, only roads in Conservative-held county councillor divisions in the district of St Albans.

Cllr Chris White, Liberal Democrat group leader said: 'When I saw this list, I sent it back to officials in disbelief: Conservative areas have already had more than their fair share of highways work so far over the past four years.'

Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson added: 'It becomes increasingly difficult to see this as anything other than electioneering by a Tory administration which knows it's on the run. To exclude a whole District and a whole city from the road repair schedule beggars belief: nothing in Watford, nothing in Abbots Langley, nothing in St Albans - the roads round here are at least as bad as those elsewhere'

'First we had the completely untrue suggestion that we wanted to cut highways spending when we are actually proposing increases. Now they are rushing out to fix the roads in the seats of councillors about to lose their seats.'