Action on the Credit Crunch Needed

9.29.59pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 16th Oct 2008

Lib Dem council group leaders across Cambridgeshire have today called upon their councils and Cambridgeshire County Council in particular to take action to support the people and small businesses in the county during the current difficult economic conditions.

David Jenkins, Lib Dem group leader on Cambridgeshire County Council, challenged the County Council to use its role as the key partner on Cambridgeshire Together to work with other councils and other partner agencies. Cllr Jenkins said: 'we will be going through a difficult winter. Whether or not we call it a recession many people will feel the economic pinch and small businesses will be especially vulnerable. This is the time when local government should show leadership and demonstrate that it really does understand local problems and has a will to address them. The County Council has a particular role and should not shirk it.'

The Lib Dems propose:

1. Actions to support local people

• reverse recent cuts in grants to the Citizens Advice Bureaux; the CABs are highly effective and have proven their ability to leverage relatively small funding to deliver significant benefit to people who need support;

• lobby landlords to invest in insulation in their properties; this is a situation where investment does not take place under normal circumstances because the benefits are not immediately enjoyed by those who invest;

• enforce the minimum wage and associated employment rights; this does not just benefit the employee but also the wider community as spending power is increased.

2. Actions to support local businesses

• Work with the Greater Cambridge Partnership, the local business partnership, and other business groups and develop a compact whereby the larger companies in the region agree a code of prompt payment with their suppliers thereby easing the cash flows of the latter

3. Actions to encourage local trade

• Designate a number of days through the next 3 months, and especially in the run up to Christmas, as 'shop locally days' and offer incentives to people to use local transport, including the park and rides, to participate

4. Actions to support local communities

• Put an immediate freeze on actions which do not support local communities such as the withdrawal of rural bus routes.

• revisit the Post Office closure debate and consider initiatives such as credit unions.

• develop innovative plans to deliver full broadband availability to rural communities

The Lib Dem leaders point out that none of these ideas will demand major expenditure but they do require councils to show agility and to redirect activity in the short term. However they insist that this will be to the benefit of the local community in its broadest sense.