An estimated 1,647 care home residents - 17% of Surrey's care home population - have tested positive for COVID-19 since the Government lifted the last national lockdown on 2 December 2020.

This distressing information came in response to a public question - to Surrey County Council's Adults and Health Select Committee - from Cllr Paul Kennedy, Liberal Democrat Candidate for Surrey's Police and Crime Commissioner, and Mole Valley District Councillor for Fetcham West.

Dinner Party on 27th March 2021 with special guest, Daisy Cooper MP. Daisy is Deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats and spokesperson for education since 2020. She is an inspirational and entertaining speaker.

This is a great opportunity to connect with each other after a very isolated year and to kick start momentum for our May campaign.

Dale Roberts, Lib Dem candidate for St Johns, calls for council decisions to be based on the dramatically changing needs of Woking constituents

Increasingly we have to think about what our communities are going to look like post Covid and one thing is for certain, we are going to see change and some of it dramatic. For example, many businesses have already adopted a policy of 'remote-first'. Some industry commentators are predicting that this could mean the end of traditional corporate Headquarters by 2030 and whilst this seems unlikely the demand for commercial office space is going to reduce, perhaps severely, over the coming years.

The Lib Dems are calling on the Government to grant EU citizens the automatic right to stay in the UK with the physical proof they need, as new Home Office figures reveal that 700 people in Woking are still waiting for a decision on their 'Settled Status' application.

The latest EU Settlement Scheme statistics show that, as of the end of December, there have been 10,560 applications from people living in Woking, but only 9,860 of these have been concluded.

Lib Dem plans for openness and transparency. 

Politicians today are creating a growing gap between what they say and what they do. The result is an increasing lack of trust in politics.

"Fide et Diligentia". This is the motto of Woking Borough Council. It means 'Faith and Diligence.' Ironic, given how the Tory-led council have been making decisions. It's no surprise that politicians are seen as less trustworthy than bankers when they bypass formal processes and obfuscate the findings of independent reports. They insist they want to be transparent, but time and again fail to be anything other than opaque.

A second localised 'surge testing' programme in Woking and the third operation in Surrey will get underway this week - in Maybury and surrounding areas after the identification of a case of the South African variant of coronavirus.

Test kits will be distributed door to door by staff and volunteers from Thursday. A map of the selected area is available here: www.surreycc.gov.uk/surgetesting

Woking Council's recent meeting confirmed the sky high borrowing the borough has taken on.

Having borrowed £1.4 billion from the government funded Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) the Conservative Council's borrowing currently stands at an eye-watering £35,000 for each Woking household.

Last week's Council meeting learned that the Victoria Square development, with its skyscraper towers, will now cost £700 million to complete. The flagship project, running late due to delays in rebuilding a car park and the impact of Covid, was originally to require only a £750,000 contribution from the borough. Victoria Square is due to open later this year, against a backdrop of key retailers such as Debenhams and Top Shop closing down. The borrowing will be paid back over half a century.

In a shock statement during last Thursday's meeting of Woking Borough Council, former Tory leader Cllr David Bittleston apologised for breaking the Members' Code of Conduct, and announced that he was resigning on 30 March, barely six weeks before he was due to retire anyway. Cllr Bittleston blamed his poor behaviour which broke the Members' Code of Conduct on the "stress and strain" of having to stay on as leader through most of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Lib Dems are calling on the Government to "give carers a break" by giving councils immediate emergency funding so they can provide the support services unpaid carers need to take a weekly break.

More than 9,817 people in Woking are looking after elderly, disabled or vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lib Dems at Surrey County Council set out its proposal for a £26m (over 5 years) Road Safety Fund last week. Led by Group Leader Chris Botten, Lib Dem councillors had put together the alternative budget plan in response to the growing number of requests from the public to their Local or Joint Committees, for improvements to junctions, reductions in speed limits or the introduction of other road safety measures. These together with other outstanding local highway schemes amount to around £50m.