The Liberal Democrats are making a real difference in government and we should be proud of our achievements.

This was the message from Lib Dem Council group leader Ian Marks to a meeting of party members on his return from a visit to his party’s conference in Birmingham where he spoke to a fringe meeting on economic development.

Cllr Marks said, “We went into coalition to get the country back on its feet but we have had to take some unpopular decisions to fix our economy.  It is more difficult because of problems in the eurozone and America.

We inherited a dreadful financial mess from Labour and recently we have seen a number of examples of their financial recklessness.  Here at Lingley Park in Warrington we have a state-of-the-art building built by Labour as a regional fire and rescue centre.  It has been described by the Labour chair of the Public Accounts Committee as an ‘empty and costly white elephant’ costing £100,000 a month to just keep ticking over despite never having been used.

There is a row over the costs of the Public Finance Initiative schemes used by Labour to build hospitals.  St Helens and Knowsley Hospital is in the firing line, which could have implications for our own hospital in Warrington.  Labour’s NHS computer system has just been axed because costs had doubled from £6 billion to over £12 billion.

Deficit reduction remains the top priority but we must get the economy moving too and create more jobs.  More spending on transport infrastructure and rolling out fast broadband is needed.  There is still far too much bureaucracy and red tape which slows everything down.  I welcome the announcement last week by the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury of the £500,000 million ‘Growing Places’ fund to help kickstart stalled development projects.

We have delivered our top manifesto commitment of an income tax threshold of £10,000 and we want to do more for lower income families.  This is so much more important than removing the 50% tax rate at the top or kow-towing to the bankers.  Fairness is our overriding aim.”