Chiltern Liberal Democrats

Even in our constituency, fuel poverty affects almost one in every nine households.

The 2012 Annual Report on Fuel Poverty Statistics shows that in the UK, fuel poverty fell from 5.5m households in 2009 to 4.75m in 2010.

The report shows that in 2010, 4,017 households in the Chesham & Amersham constituency were in fuel poverty, which means they spent more than 10% of their income in order to keep warm. That figure amounts to 11.2% of the total households.

The Liberal Democrat candidate in the Chesham Town Council by-election is Ruth Juett.

Ruth lives in Hivings Hill, Chesham.

As a local person she knows the Townsend Ward well.

She is a keen supporter of local community associations and is the chair of the Chiltern inter-faith goup Beyond Difference.

There are a number of other candidates - but only Ruth Juett and the Liberal Democrats can beat the Conservatives. A vote for any other candidate means the Tories win.

A landmark move to roll back the surveillance state has become law.

The Protection of Freedoms Act will:

• stop councils snooping
• end the storage of DNA of innocent people
• reduce the bureaucracy of CRB checks
• end 28-day detention
• stop schools deciding on their own to take fingerprints of children
• Make stalking a criminal offence
• End wheel clamping on private land
• Delete historical convictions for men who have had consensual gay sex with someone who was over 16

...that we've spelt 'pantomime' wrongly on the Chesham Spring Focus leaflet. Sorry.

New figures today show that in our county 1,380 people have started an apprenticeship between August 2011 and January 2012.

This comes on top of 2,690 apprentices in our area last year, which is an increase of 63% on the previous year.

Commenting, Cllr Chris Spruytenburg said:

"Liberal Democrats are determined to tackle youth unemployment and get our economy back on track by rebalancing the economy away from the financial speculators gambling with other people's money in the City of London.

Chiltern Liberal Democrats remain opposed to HS2 on the grounds that the vast costs will outweigh any likely benefits. Here are two articles on the subject that we've noticed in the past few days.

First, by Simon Dance: