New Council

10 days ago we had the first Council of the year. The main purpose of the the meeting is the governance of th Council. As such we elected Alan Jones as the new chairman. The composition of the new committees also agreed. I have come off Planning Policy an returned to Housing, which I was pleased about. Housing queries often form a large part of my casework and it will be good to get more involved in shaping the policy. I have was also elected Vice Chairman of the Resources Committee. Given the financial mess left by the last Government and the resultant cutbacks that are likely to hit local government on I am expecting a busy year in this role!

Localism Wins

As a local councillor the most eye catching paragraph in the coalition statement reads as follows: 'The parties will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local
government and community groups. This will include a full review of local government finance.'

This is great news for those of us who believe that decisions should be taken as close to the people who they effect.

Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government

A Conservative led Government that can serve a full term with the active support of the Liberal Democrats is the best result we could have hoped for in the light of the election results.
While I would have preferred us to have won outright, the Liberals bring some good policies, not least the idea of taking the poorest out of income tax by increasing personal allowances to £10,000. But the most important commitment is that of credibly reducing the deficit and starting that work this year. I also welcome their commitment to localism and hope that powers will be devolved down, so we can make even more of a difference to the residents of Tandridge.

Tandridge District Council Results

Quick post to say Conservatives retained the 13 of 14 seats up for election today (all with increased majorities), with the Lib Dems retaining the 14th.

The result in Oxted South was as follows:

CONSERVATIVES 1471
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS 734
LABOUR 719
UKIP 253
GREEN 100

7 Spoilt Papers

Turnout 74.93%

A superb result in Oxted South. Well done Barry Compton! For the rest of Tandridge's results please visit the TDC website

East Surrey Election Result

I am not going to comment on the national picture, it all looks too confusing - albeit a clear rejection of this current Labour government . My commiserations go to Matt Groves and Fabian Richter, who fought Plymouth Moorview and Bath for the Conservatives.

But many congratulations to Sam Gyimah MP, who increased Peter Ainsworth's share of the vote in East Surrey, getting more than double the number of votes polled for the Lib Dems.

I hope that this bodes well for our Council results later this morning.

Polling Today

Obviously it will be some hours before we have the Parliamentary result in East Surrey and around lunchtime before we have the Council results. But a couple of things stuck me today. Turnout seemed much higher than we might have expected given disenchantment with politics generally and pleasingly a lot of young and first time voters turned out. I was also surprised by how much fight seemed left in the Labour machine in Oxted South.

I saw Sam Giymah early in the evening. I realise that many Conservatives were unhappy at the circumstances in which he came to be selected, but I am sure that he will today have received a clear mandate from the voters of East Surrey to serve them in Parliament. In my opinion he will be an excellent MP.

Night Before

All the campaigning is done, now it is for voters to decide. All that is left for me to do is to urge readers to:

VOTE FOR CHANGE, VOTE CONSERVATIVE