My week ahead, 24 February - 2 March 2014

Monday – 24 February, 3pm – World War One commemoration steering group
4pm – Culture portfolio meeting
6pm Labour Group

Wednesday – 26 February, 10am – Northgate Foundation meeting
6pm – Ipswich Borough, Full Council meeting

Thursday – 27 February, 6pm – North East Ipswich Partnership meeting
7pm – North East Ipswich Area Committee meeting

Saturday 1 March, 10am – Labour campaigning – South East Ipswich

Sunday 2 March, 11am – Young Labour campaigning – South West Ipswich

The main event this week will be the Full Council meeting where we have to set the budget and agree on what level we set council tax. I believe we, the Labour Group can be very proud of what we have achieved in Ipswich over the last few years in what have been difficult times. It has been hard work to retain a level of service that is acceptable for Ipswich residents, a task that has been made more difficult by the savage cuts to local government funding from this Tory/Lib Dem Government.

In Ipswich we are further hampered in this difficult task by the ideological way the Suffolk County Council administration has gone about its own work. They are determined to drive though their policies at the same time as building up huge reserves and all of Suffolk are suffering but in particular Ipswich are being hit the worst.

In Suffolk you just have to look at the place the county sits in the education league tables and in Ipswich we have roads and verges that remind me more of war torn Sarajevo that a prosperous town in East Anglia.

It will be interesting on Wednesday to see if the Tory group offer any workable alternatives to our proposed budget.

I believe our budget is the best for Ipswich residents, and we should also thank the Officers and the employees at the Borough who have helped us over the last three years in providing an excellent service to Ipswich residents in very testing times.