Kendall takes action at County Hall

Recently elected Essex County Councillor David Kendall has put down a motion and two questions for next weeks Full Council meeting at County Hall:

2011 The Year of the Volunteer: This Council notes the valuable work undertaken by voluntary organisations across Essex. In order to encourage even greater participation by our residents in the voluntary sector, Council pledges to draw up plans to launch "2011 The Year of the Volunteer" across Essex.

Cllr Kendall said "There is already some tremendous voluntary work going on in places like Brentwood and across Essex, however I believe that local authorities need to do more to publicise the voluntary groups in our communities and encourage more residents to get involved. The Year of the Volunteer has been a success in other parts of the country and I hope it is something that will gain cross party support"

He will also be asking a question about broadband:

"What steps have the County Council taken or are planning to take to lobby the Government and BT to speed up the rapid installation of fast, reliable and high capacity broadband across Essex?"

and about business rate relief:

"What steps have the County Council taken to lobby the Government for the automatic granting of small business rate relief to all eligible businesses in Essex?"

He said "There are large swathes of Essex both urban and rural that still have poor broadband access and more needs to be done to tackle the problem. I believe Essex County Council should be leading that fight with the Government and BT.

"As far as businesses are concerned, many are not aware they are entitled to small business rate relief. This money could make a difference in helping some of them survive and saving jobs so I would like to see the Government automatically grant this money to them in the future".