Cllr Derek Osbourne, the Leader of Kingston’s Liberal Democrat Group is continuing his campaign to save the Royal Borough’s local services from aggressive cuts and closures, following the local Conservative’s electoral pledge to slash £24million out of the Council’s budget.

Cllr Osbourne held up resident petitions from 2007 which called on the Council to protect Newent House – a 38 bedded residential home for the eldely with day care centre for disabled and elderly residents in Surbiton – in light of a Conservative party literature from 2010 saying that if they won control of the Council they would remove adult care services from Newent House and build classrooms there.

He said: “Local Liberal Democrats are fully supportive of using the much larger and more appropriate site of former Surbiton Hospital to build a new local school, and we will protect the residents and users of Newent House from this heartless Conservative policy.

“I am deeply concerned that the Tories are not being honest about where they plan to make millions of pounds worth of cuts from Kingston’s services in order to achieve politically popular council tax savings. Council services on which our local elderly and disabled resident rely – such as our care homes – could be seriously under threat.

“In this particular case the Conservatives have not said how they would afford to rebuild a new Newent at a probable cost of over £10 million. IF they build the school and have no plans on how to fund a replacement Newent what message are they sending?”