Ambitious plans to improve education, create jobs and fund more policing for the people of Wisbech have been revealed by Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats.

They have outlined their ideas for the Fenland town in their alternative budget for Cambridgeshire County Council.

"The people of Wisbech have been ignored for too long by the Tories running the county council," said Lib Dem Leader, Kilian Bourke.

Young people looking for education, training or employment would be entitled to free transport under an £80,000 scheme proposed by Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats.

The scheme would be run by Cambridgeshire County Council Locality Teams and would cover all forms of public transport.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet Member for Transport, Susan van de Ven said, "Young people face unprecedented pressures, and the prohibitive cost of transport can be a blockade to opportunity.

In their alternative Cambridgeshire County Council budget, the Lib Dems have set aside £10 million over the next five years to maintain and improve the buildings of the 200 schools for which the council is still responsible.

"The council has a school maintenance backlog of over £20 million", said Lib Dem Education Spokesman, Peter Downes. "We would increase the investment in making schools fit for purpose and we would give priority to maintenance work that would improve energy efficiency.

Cambridgeshire County Councillor, Nigel Bell is questioning why it took years for a vital link road in Ely to open.

He has accused the Tory-run Cambridgeshire County Council and East Cambridgeshire District Council of dragging their feet over the link between Lynn Road and Prickwillow Road.

The simple removal of a few concrete blocks allowed the road from Thistle Corner to King's Avenue to be opened enabling drivers to access the A10 without driving through the city.

Cambridgeshire has one of the lowest records in the country for helping pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve their full potential.

The county comes 12^th from the bottom in league tables for achieving five A* to C grades in GCSEs including English and Maths; only 25 per cent of the pupils on free school meals achieve these targets.

Cambridgeshire County Council's long running dispute over the guided bus project looks set to drag on for another three years costing £9.5 million in interest.*

A resolution of the case with contractor BAM Nuttall was expected to take place in 2013-14 but has now been pushed back to 2014-15.

The Conservative administration expects by this time to have won 100 per cent of the court case and received a full settlement - including the cost of these interest payments plus an additional charge on top - from BAM Nuttall.

Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats have revealed their alternative budget investing £10 million in transport over the next five years, supporting schools and young people and embarking on a radical programme of energy efficiency.

The budget identifies around £67 million worth of savings in the years to 2017 while reversing the Tories' withdrawal of financial support for bus services.

A move by Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats to attract councillors from a wide range of backgrounds is to be discussed publicly with a view to forming a county council policy.

The group has been invited by the Tory-led administration to produce a report increasing the diversity of elected members by holding a quarter of council meetings out of office hours and organising training in the evenings.

Angry Liberal Democrats have attacked Tory plans to spend £375,000 of developer's cash on promoting the Guided Bus while ignoring pedestrian safety and cycling improvements.

They say the promotional campaign for a service that is out of reach for many residents is "scandalous".

The move came in draft proposals for how to spend developer's contributions received by Cambridgeshire County Council for the Cambridge University North West site development.

A Cambridgeshire County Councillor's campaign to get a fairer deal for part-time university students under the government's education loans scheme cleared another hurdle on 1 November 2011.

In the House of Lords, the government agreed with the Liberal Democrat amendment for the move, clearing the way for it to be written into the government's Education Bill and become law. It was then also supported cross-party in the Lords.