Welwyn Hatfield Liberal Democrats

Jon Arch, who had been nominated as this year's Liberal Democrat council candidate for Welwyn West, has decided to withdraw from the race with the support of the local Liberal Democrat party. He is recommending that local residents support the Independent candidate, Sandra Kyriakides, who is campaigning against the crass way that the Welwyn Hatfield Conservative administration tried to impose charging in the village car parks and is now seeking to bring in a mass of new parking restrictions in the village without proper consultation.

The car park at KGV in WGC is now free again, as the trial period of restrictions is over. The notices about the restrictions have gone. But the car park is virtually empty, the previous users having been put off by the restrictions.

Malcolm Cowan, LibDem county and borough councillor says this valuable amenity should be publicised. 'There are dozens of cars parked in the nearby residential roads when they can now use the car park for free. Finese tell me it will be at least July before the trial has been evaluated and any new restrictions imposed. I believe the council and Finesse should be shouting from the rooftops that the car park is free again and people do not need to park in the roads.'

Over 20 million working people will be better off next year after Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government delivered the biggest ever increase in the income tax personal allowance in the Budget.

The massive £3.5bn tax cut for working people delivers:

• The biggest ever single uplift in the tax threshold
• A personal allowance of £9,205 in April 2013
• 21 million working people getting an extra £220 tax cut
• Brings the total tax cut for basic rate tax payers to £550
• Brings the total number of people lifted out of tax to 2 million.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg used his speech to the Party's Spring conference in NewcastleGateshead to call for the forthcoming budget to be a "budget for fairness" and pledged that it would help working familes.

The Deputy Prime Minister pledged that by 2015 Britain would have seen an end to control orders, the first gay marriages and the first elections to the House of Lords.

Fairer taxes, promoting green jobs, protecting your civil liberties - these are just some of the achievements of the Liberal Democrats in government.

We're building a freer, greener and more liberal country - and stopping some of the worst excesses of the Conservatives. Find out more in this infographic.

Herts Tories and the Council Planning Department were in utter confusion following the farce over Southfields school last week.

At the start of the Development Control meeting to consider allowing the school to be moved to allow the incinerator to be built at New Barnfield, local LibDem councillor Chris Brazier (the Colneys) moved it be delayed until the siting of the incinerator was decided. The Tories threw this out and voted through the £5.9m move, branded 'poor value for money' by the council's own officers.

Dear Sir

Given the county council's budget-setting meeting lasted nearly 5 hours, your report could only touch on some of the points made. As we Liberal Democrats put forward a comprehensive set of alternatives to the Tory budget, I thought your readers might be interested in some more of them.

As you reported, we proposed borrowing £10m in each of the next 3 years to improve our roads and pavements, and proposed giving each councillor the scope to turn back on at least some of the street lights. We do not share the view of one senior Tory that people should not be out after midnight - many are on the way home from work or from an evening out.

LibDem Councillor Malcolm Cowan has highlighted the growing problem of rubbish piling up next to the recycling bins in the Sainsbury's car park in WGC town centre.

Malcolm says 'It is only a few weeks since I last pointed out a large pile of newspapers dumped by the recycling bins which were full. Now it seems anything and everything is being left. This latest pile includes a child's buggy. By no stretch of the imagination could that have been left because the recycling bins were full.

Sir

Last week a Mr Bailey wrote about the cancellation of Welwyn Hatfield council's most recent meeting due to lack of business. This is not entirely accurate as the LibDem group had submitted a question to the council leader about a little-known change to council tax benefit which will mean many residents losing 25% of their benefit. I am pleased to say that on this occasion, leader John Dean has agreed with us.