East Worthing & Shoreham MP Tim Loughton has blasted local UKIP councillors for simultaneously calling for work on local highways whilst trying to vote through a cut of £5.75m in the County Council’s highways budget last week. He commented:
‘We all know that many local roads are under a lot of pressure after two years of snow and ice and now two months of relentless rain. That is why I was delighted when the County Council acknowledged the problem and recently announced they had found an additional £30m to spend on minor roads in the County which have been hit. I am also very grateful for the hard work of officers from both the local councils and the County who have managed to keep most of our roads open despite the atrocious weather we have experienced since before Christmas and the subsequent flooding problems. In the circumstances we have been relatively unscathed in Adur and Worthing and that only goes to underline how important it is that we resist excessive developments on our local flood plains being consulted on in the Adur Draft Local Plan. I have written an open letter to the Leader of Adur Council and Planning minister Nick Boles.
However, locally we have had nothing but whinging and shameless photo calls from local UKIP councillors. They have been trying to take credit for work on local roads scheduled before they were even elected. They have been making a fuss about the state of parking on verges churned up by the recent rain and they have criticised the County Council for not doing more to prevent flooding on roads. Yet what do they do back at County Hall – try to force through a cut in funding for the highways budget and use the money for a referendum on the structure of local councils. Meanwhile they completely forgot to get the County Council’s help to resist the excessive development plans on our flood plain and it was left to me and local Conservative councillors to secure their support there. What a warped sense of priorities from these new councillors.’