Sir,

In the letters’ page of your newspaper, Daniel Goodger attempted a negative and misleading attack on the recent Liberal Democrat councillors’ leaflet ‘Four More Years of Progress’.

The leaflet reports back to residents some of the achievements of Kingston Council over the past four years. It explains that thanks to the support of local people, we have rolled out one of the most comprehensive and successful recycling schemes in the whole of London; we have worked hard to achieve the lowest incidence of crime in the capital; and we have been recognised as having some of the best schools, children’s services and town centre strategies in the country.

But Mr Goodger, who at the last local elections unsuccessfully stood as a Conservative and is this year promoting himself as an Independent candidate - wants to criticise genuine progress, and undermine achievement by making factually inaccurate claims.

He used to complain about crime and disorder in Kingston town centre, now he attacks our solution. The Council’s contribution to the New Deal contract keeps the Rose Theatre open – which has been nationally recognised as transforming Kingston town, especially after dark: leading to falling crime rate and attracting millions of pounds worth of spending in the local economy.

He then makes a number of misleading statements, such as saying we have ‘cut’ services at Hobkirk House - where in fact we have merged its day centre services at a site in Surbiton, and opened a brand new modern facility for carers at the Noble Centre, Blagdon Road.

He claims there is ‘poor council management’ of our schools - when they produce the best GCSE results in England and are regularly recognised as providing ‘outstanding’ education services. This year, every four year old needing a nursery place in a local school has been offered one and 96% of all children and young people in the borough will go to one of their three stated preferences for schools.

Mr Goodger’s letter clearly demonstrates the sort of councillor he wants to be: do-nothing, spend nothing, but keep local services exactly as they are – regardless of whether they are out of date and in need of modernisation and investment. Not only would this strategy lead to financial failure, but it would not improve the borough or benefit residents.

C’mon Daniel, stop whinging. Give credit where it’s due, or show us your manifesto: how would you do things differently?

Derek Osbourne
Leader of Kingston Council

Liberal Democrat Group Rooms
The Guildhall
Kingston upon Thames
KT1 1EU