What matters to the people of Suffolk, and how can the Liberal Democrats help?

At the Suffolk Campaign Conference in Ipswich on Saturday, one of the workshops focused on identifying problems, issues and areas of concern for Suffolk residents, to ensure that Liberal Democrat policies at County level can be developed that would improve the lives of local people.

The County Council's large financial reserves need to be taken into account, along with the changing balance between central and regional funding. Service areas that were specifically felt to have been adversely affected by Conservative-imposed funding cuts included:

• adult care, with the selling-off of County care homes and the dismantling of social care and mental health support
• highways, including the closure of Park & Ride facilities, with a particular negative impact on college students
• education, both school and adult
• community services, specifically libraries and the fire service.

Another concern was the lack of joined-up services. In some cases, aspects of one single area of service are divided between District Council, County Council and the private sector, with no overriding co-ordination, and this can cause problems and inefficiencies. One example is that road-side hedges are often cut after litter collections rather than before, even though the trimmed hedges then expose more litter.

Key messages from this session, and others like it, will be taken forward into discussions and policy-making, to create a Liberal Democrat County manifesto for the County Council elections next year.