At the County Council meeting on Thursday, 27th May Rob Bird led the tributes to Trudy Dean who has recently stepped down as Leader of Kent Liberal Democrats.

"Trudy's standing as a County Councillor can be described in one word - 'formidable'. She has made her presence felt in County Hall for 32 years - including 4 years as a Cabinet Member and the past 20 years as Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group.

The Kent Liberal Democrats spokespersons and shadow cabinet members are as follows:

Rob Bird

• Group Leader
• Traded Services
• Strategic Commissioning
• Finance
• Customer, Communications and Performance

Trudy Dean

• Deputy Leader
• Children, Young People and Education,
• Corporate and Democratic Services

Ian Chittenden

At today's meeting of the Kent County Council Liberal Democrat group, Trudy Dean announced that she was stepping down from her position as Group Leader.

Trudy said "All leaders want to step down in favour of the safe hands of a talented successor. I have worked very hard to lead and support the Lib Dem Group as a well informed and constructive group at KCC.

"The NHS is in a serious state": that is the headline in many newspapers these days - and unfortunately this is only too obvious.

It would seem that no matter how much money is pumped into this most precious public asset, it is never enough and that quite routine services even now are being scaled back; important operations postponed; prescriptions of some essentials being no longer supplied, Accident and Emergency departments closed and amalgamated, etc.

The Liberal Democrat group at County Hall was unable to support the budget proposed by the Conservative Administration, see keynote speech by Lib Dem Group Leader, Trudy Dean, in previous article.

However, both the budget amendments, which the Liberal Democrat introduced during the budget debate, received overwhelming support from the Council.

Trudy Dean's speech at the Kent County Council budget debate on Thursday 11th February

I received an email a couple of weeks ago from a constituent thanking me for KCC neglect. He said that he had got off a charge of speeding because the speed limit signs were so dirty the court deemed them impossible to read.

A personal view by Rob Bird

A few days ago I was walking round a small private estate in Central Maidstone. The bungalows were mostly well loved and well maintained but some - a few more than last year - reeked of neglect. They showed all the signs of being occupied by an elderly person, on his or her own, totally isolated from the community.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has called for local authorities to have powers to compel all lorry drivers who use satnavs to use
commercial models following a fresh catalogue of chaos on the nation's roads. For the LGA statement click here.

Kent residents are fed up with large lorries clogging up villages and town centres, getting stuck on tight medieval bridges or in residential streets, or thundering down narrow country lanes. All too often lorry drivers are relying on phones or basic satnavs, totally oblivious of weight limits or roads which are too narrow or otherwise unsuitable for large and heavy vehicles.