Make your vote count - 11:14 pm, Wed 14th Jul 2010
It's finally here. To tell you the truth, the time has flown by and I've had a lot of fun. Yet the serious business is about to happen, and all the positive experiences before will count for nothing if we don't win on polling day.
I had considered writing a much sharper piece exposing the considerable differences between Preston Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but events have a way of overtaking you.
As we gathered for a final push tonight we were thwarted by the large amounts of rain that seemed to descend upon Preston this evening. We seemed to be somewhat taunted by the weather as the sky seemed quite clear a couple of miles to the west.
While heading home we faced with a forceful reminder of one of the more serious issues that have cropped up in Riversway ward in the last few years - flooding. The roads seemed completely swamped, and while the monsoon like rain was thankfully brief I have to say that I concerned about some areas of the ward that have been prone to flooding after such rainfalls. I sincerely hope that flooding was limited just to roads and not properties.
This issue has meant a lot to me, not least because of the sheer effort required just to get it on the Council agenda. As local Labour councillors we pushed hard to get Preston Council to take some leadership on the issue; the Tories and Liberal Democrats voted against our proposals. They even claimed that by raising the issue of flooding, we had made action the council LESS likely to happen.
At this moment, there is work being undertaking to alleviate the very flooding that we were concerned about - flooding from poor drainage. This will take some time to complete on Strand Road, but will hopefully resolve the problem for good. I won't say if there is a connection between that work and the campaign that we organised on the issue. I'll just say that we were the only party in Preston to campaign on the issue and that the Tories and Lib Dems tried to stop us.
I couldn't ask for a better example of the sheer irresponsibility of the Liberal Democrats and Tories, as a comparison to the commitment to a truly local agenda that Preston Labour tries to pursue. I hope people will see the truth in it and deliver a Labour Councillor on the day - I'm not sure that Preston could survive the ramifications of a Lib Dem victory at a time like this.
