Spencer Farmer

I have been a Conservative Councillor for 6 years and have worked closely with Wokingham Conservative Association and the Wokingham Borough Conservative Group.

I have been shocked at how Wokingham Borough Council is run by the Liberal Democrats since May 2022.

• They have mismanaged the Council finances, wasting money on vanity projects such as California Crossroads, and cutting reserves by a third, or close to £35 million.
• They have lost control of the Local Plan and are putting the Borough at risk of uncontrolled overdevelopment.
• They betrayed residents over Hall Farm, voting for 3,950+ new houses in the Local Plan while telling residents they were campaigning against it. We must put the right number of houses in the right place, while protecting our green fields, and neighbouring communities from large and damaging increases to local traffic.
• We must ensure that we invest in good quality roads and repair our local potholes.
• We must stop the LibDem war on our family car. The introduction of massive increases in parking charges has hurt working families and impacted local businesses, who have seen a significant drop in footfall.

And I am appalled at how the Labour government has betrayed our communities with broken promise after broken promise.

• The cut of winter fuel allowance for 45,000 pensioners across Wokingham Brough and Reading.
• The decision to delay the building of a new Royal Berkshire Hospital until 2039 at the earliest, after promising to build it within this parliament.
• Energy bills increasing by £152 since July 2024 when they promised to cut them by £300.
• They promised that you would not see 'one more penny on your Council Tax Bills'. They have continued to rise and now Labour propose to cut funding for local services by £50 million and redistribute your Council Tax to Councils elsewhere in the country.
• And they promised not to increase National Insurance, but did it anyway as part of a £40 billion tax grab on working people.

Labour's tax hikes undermined confidence across our economy.

• Unemployment up.
• Mortgages up.
• Growth down.

And now Labour must fill a further £50 billion black hole in their next budget.