Hertfordshire County Council has failed to deliver improvements of over £250m to residents over the last 4 years
At the Resources and Performance Cabinet Panel meeting on 5 July 2021, it was revealed that Hertfordshire County Council failed to deliver £102m of budgeted improvements to residents during the last financial year 2020/2021.
Hardest hit were children and young people, with £27.8m of the schools’ expansion program and a further £12.5m of schools’ repairs and maintenance being reprogrammed.
Capital projects valued at nearly £2m (£1.7m) for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) children and young people were reprogrammed, despite investment in this area being widely acknowledged as essential.
Additionally, road users across the county will feel hard hit by the failure to deliver on over £4m (£4.3m) of vital road maintenance, as traffic volumes return to and, in some cases exceed, pre-pandemic levels.
Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Tring, Sally Symington is the Lead Spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat Official Opposition.
She commented,
“It isn’t good enough to promise improvements to the residents and yet repeatedly fail to deliver them. This isn’t the first time this has happened and it can’t just be blamed on the pandemic. Over the previous three years, capital budgets worth a further £152m were unspent, bringing the total for the last administration to over £250m.
The County Council needs to get this sorted out, invest for the future and deliver on its promises for the people of Hertfordshire”.