County Councillors David Kendall and Barry Aspinell: Why we want to do it all again!

Four years ago, we shocked the Tory machine by winning two county seats from them…we also shocked ourselves to be honest!

We have achieved a lot in the last four years:

• We called for Lord Hanningfield's "Bank of Essex" to be scrapped and can truthfully claim credit in getting the Conservatives at County Hall to cancel these plans and stopped them gambling millions of pounds of our money in these critical financial times
• We challenged the Tories on the £200 million hoarded away in reserves and have constantly called for this money to be used to improve our area (fixing a few potholes for starters) but, as usual, the Tories hide your tax money away. According to some newspaper reports the County Council is now sitting on £300 million in its reserves. We will keep challenging them on this.
• We have demanded more investment in roads, pothole repairs & public transport and have fought for and remain committed to projects in Brentwood.
• We have demanded that Car Parking charges in the Country Parks are scrapped. The Tories aren't listening on this either, but we have fought for it and will keep doing so.
• We have called for the budget on PR and Spin to be slashed. In 2009, we couldn't have imagined what would happen - not only is £2.5M being spent on Spin and PR, Tory Lord Hanningfield had to stand down as leader after being convicted of fraud and put in prison.
• We are still chasing the Tory administration to act upon the £300,000+ that he allegedly misspent on the Council's credit card and for him to be pursued for its repayment.
• We are also looking for action on his £4,600 House of Lords bar bill that's been paid for by us, Essex taxpayers.
• We have raised serious concerns about the £5 million+ that has been spent by County staff on goods and services using procurement cards. Following Lib Dem intervention all these transactions are now declared online - meaning you can see what your money is spent on.

Without us, these matters would not have been made public and the Tories would have been able to get away with this and more.

Electing another Tory councillor just means allowing them to close ranks further and they won't be challenged because it is us, not any other party that has been making sure you know how your money is spent.

We want to carry on working for you at County Hall - as you can see there is still a lot to do and we will continue to expose their shortcomings and wasteful spending plans (that includes chauffers, fine dining, foreign travel and fine art at £14M).

You pay 74% of your council tax to Essex County Council and we will do our utmost to ensure value for money for all residents.

County Cllr Barry Aspinell (Brentwood North) and County Cllr David Kendall (Brentwood South)