UNLIKE Labour, the Liberal Democrat Opposition at County Hall thought it our duty to produce an alternative to the Conservative Cabinet budget.

We therefore came up with a solid and worked-through plan, which I can assure Cllr Brighouse cost nothing like £3,000 to produce, as we did all the research and most of the work ourselves over the previous couple of months.

It offered a realistic and prudent choice, with a council tax rise of 2.5 per cent, and over five years additional spending of £11.6m on three priority areas – children and young people, elderly and vulnerable adults and roads, pavements and the environment. Unlike the cabinet, we did not arrogantly assume a grant from a Conservative government that has yet to be elected and thus our plans did not suffer a financial setback from the fall-out of such a grant after two years. We said we would fund this extra spending and our reduced rise in council tax by spending less on unnecessary back office functions, glossy publications, and by extra income from evening and Sunday parking, and skip and scaffolding licenses.

Given that Labour said at the time that our plans were close to their own, unspoken, ideas, and given that they were unable to produce their own suggestions at council, I am surprised that they did not simply vote for our amendments.

ZOE PATRICK, Liberal Democrat, Leader of the Opposition, County Hall, Oxford