Head boy of Woodroffe School makes a point to Nick Harvey MP and Sue Farrant

Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary calls for Veterans Charter and warns that the future of the RAF is in doubt

Nick Harvey, MP for North Devon and Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary was in West Dorset last Friday to meet Dr Sue Farrant, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate. They share an interest in defence issues and are both active campaigners for the welfare of servicemen and women and for veterans.

During the afternoon, they held a question and answer session with sixth formers at the Woodroffe School, Lyme Regis. Some of the students are members of the School’s Combined Cadet Force. Sue Farrant said afterwards, “We were both very impressed with the interest shown by the sixth formers and by their willingness to ask challenging questions. The discussion was wide ranging and included the nuclear deterrent, the Iraq War, bankers’ pay and higher education”.

(more…)

Tree planting in Dorchester

Sue Farrant supports Dorchester and Weymouth Greenpeace as they plant a Cox’s Orange Pippin alongside the allotments at Riverside Walk. The Dorchester tree is twinned with one at Sipson, birthplace of the Cox’s Orange Pippin and now the proposed site for the Heathrow third runway. Sue has become one of 60,000 beneficial owners of ‘Airplot’ a parcel of land at Sipson ow planted with trees as a symbol of opposition to the runway.

Local campaigners highlight their access issue to Dr Sue Farrant

Dr Sue Farrant, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset, visited Poundbury and Maiden Castle at the invitation of the Poundbury Rural Access Campaign headed by Peter Evans. Mr Evans explained that the Duchy of Cornwall’s plans for the further development of Poundbury did not include the rural access to Maiden Castle under the Dorchester bypass envisaged in the 2006 Poundbury Development Brief. Instead the Duchy were proposing a convoluted route alongside the bypass to an existing footpath to the north west of Maiden Castle or funnelling residents along the inside of the bypass to Maiden Castle Road.

(more…)

Dorchester's New Chairman David Taylor

Dear all Lib Democrat Supporters’

Well, a Happy New Year and decade – this looks to be a good time for us all.

This news letter is by way of introducing myself, David Taylor, as your new chairman for the Liberal Democrats Group  for Dorchester and surrounding areas.

I was born in Sherborne, Dorset and now live and work in Dorchester.

My main objective is to rally and steer all  our teams and colleagues together  so that we can collectively get Dr Sue Farrant elected as our MP for West Dorset into Parliament at the next general election.

A key date for our diaries is Saturday Jan 23rd when we’re meeting in the morning to discuss “How to Win the General Election” and in the afternoon we’ll be undertaking residents surveys all across the town.

Recently I went into the Tom Browns pub and asked the Landlord Jamie Pinnow, if he would mind if we could meet up on the first Wednesday  of each month so we  could have a social chat be it very informal.  He was delighted and hence our great saying “we birds of a feather can now flock together” first meeting  Wed 3^rd Feb @ 7.00pm all welcome I will be there.

If anyone would like to contact me by E-Mail the address is

david@dorchester63.freeserve.co.uk

And my home address is 4 Normandy Way, Dorchester, DT1 2PP

Tel 01305 263382

Once again Happy New Year 2010.

Regards David Taylor

Sue Farrant and local campaigners fight for safer roads

Dorset has one of the highest road casualty rates in Britain.

Liberal Democrats say that Dorset County Council must take road safety much more seriously. Dr Sue Farrant and local campaigners are demanding that the public should be consulted on steps like putting back the white lines on the Bridport to Weymouth coast road, introducing more pedestrian crossings and traffic calming and 20 mph limits in residential areas.

The Liberal Democrats say that local people with worries about safety and traffic speed should be asked what they think should be done to make their roads safer.

“The Conservatives must listen to local people as they know best how to cut the terrible accident rate. It’s no good thinking that one solution will fit everywhere, we need different solutions for different places”, said Dr Sue Farrant.

Dr Sue Farrant Calls for Fairer Taxes

Local Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate Dr Sue Farrant has been travelling around West Dorset with a giant cheque, meeting local residents to show them how much the average person would save under Liberal Democrat tax policies.

Under the proposed tax policies, no one will have to pay tax on the first £10,000 of their income. This will save the average tax payer £700 each. Homes with two workers could be up to £1400 a year better off.

These tax cuts will be paid for by measures including closing tax loopholes exploited by the rich, taxes on pollution and a new levy on houses worth more than £2 million.

Dr Sue Farrant says, “Ordinary people are paying far more than their fair share while the rich pay less than they should. Our plan will put money back into the pockets of those who need it most, pensioners and working people on low incomes.”

The Liberal Democrat plan to help local people couldn’t be more different to the Conservative’s plan to cut inheritance tax for the wealthiest 2 per cent.

Dr Sue Farrant says, “It shows the Conservatives haven’t really changed. They are much more concerned about the wealthy few than about ordinary people.”

The Liberal Democrats have announced how they would bring a quarter of a million empty homes back into use, making homes available for people who need them and creating 65,000 jobs.

There are 906 empty homes in West Dorset. Many of these properties can be brought back into use with some investment. Under Liberal Democrat proposals, people who own these homes will get a grant or a low cost loan to renovate them so they can be used.

Dr Sue Farrant, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset, believes that the shortage of housing for local people is one of the most important issues facing the area. “There are currently 2,342 people on West Dorset District Council’s housing register waiting for homes and 906 houses and flats standing empty,” she said, “A great many local people have already had to leave the area because they can’t find anywhere to live at a price they can afford.

“We need to find ways to encourage the owners of these empty properties to bring them up to a good standard and then rent them out. That way, the owners get an income and someone gets a home.”

Dr Farrant, who works in social housing says that building a new house costs on average ten times more than renovating an existing property. Bringing empty homes back into use will help local people to stay near their families and to take up local jobs, will give a boost to the hard-hit construction industry and is more environmentally friendly than new-build.

Dr Sue Farrant, Parliamentary Candidate, outside County Hospital

Dr Sue Farrant, Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset Liberal Democrats has responded to the DCH Recovery Plan which was released this morning.

“I am very pleased to see that the Plan’s focus is on maintaining good quality services which represent good value for money and and are easily accessible to local people. I believe it is absolutely right to look first at the Hospital’s management and administration and to concentrate on increasing productivity and efficiency. None the less I would be surprised if there were no impact on patients at all. I am particularly concerned about the future of the Breast Cancer Unit and I have twice asked DCH about cleaning standards at the hospital but without getting the promised response. We will all await the details of how the Plan is to be implemented with some anxiety.

“However, whilst we need to look forward, the local community also deserves to know how we got here in the first place. The most astonishing thing for me is the statement  ‘ The hospital has got into these financial problems because since 2006 it has recruited over 300 new staff and invested heavily in services in the hope [my italics] that it would attract more patients. But these extra patients never came and so we are left with rising costs but without the income to cover them.’ (para 8 of the news release). (more…)

Sue Farrant and parents at Albany Unit

Residents of the Albany Unit, Castletown Way, Sherborne will be given the option of staying in there after all. Many months of pressure from a group of parents led by Mrs Rona Sturmey and with the help of Dr Sue Farrant, Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset Liberal Democrats, has finally resulted in a U-turn by Dorset County Council and the Primary Care Trust.

At the end of last week, Dr Farrant was told that DCC and the PCT have finally accepted that the residents who wish to carry on living in the houses at the Unit will  be allowed to do so if their parents or other advocates believe it to be in their best interests.

For well over a year the Albany Unit has been threatened with complete closure and already  many of the residents have been found alternative accommodation elsewhere. Mrs Sturmey’s son Spencer has lived there happily for many years and Mrs Sturmey was dreading him being moved to live a long way away where it would be hard for her to visit him. (more…)

Coldharbour Residents Welcome Hourly Bus Service

After a long campaign, Coldharbour residents have now been given a timetable for a new hourly bus service in the New Year.

First buses have confirmed that the 58 Yeovil-Shaftsbury service will stop at Coldharbour from 4th January 2010.

Local Campaigner Jan Ross, with the help of Dr Sue Farrant, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, has been leading the fight for a bus service in Coldharbour and after a successful summer surveying residents they were able to show Fist that a new bus stop would be worth their while.

Jan Ross, “It is great to finally have a timetable and a start date for our bus service. I’d like to thank all the local residents for their support during this campaign; I’d also like to thank Sue Farrant for taking up our fight and seeing that we were successful. Without her commitment and hard work it wouldn’t have happened” (more…)