Liberal Democrat Group Leader Councillor Ian Yuill said “We believe investing in our children’s education is vital and proposed giving an extra £100,000 to schools to buy additional books and equipment. That would have made a real difference to every school in the city. Sadly Labour and their Conservative sidekicks rejected this extra investment in Aberdeen’s children’s future.”

Turning to the Liberal Democrats proposal to invest an extra £2 million in 2014/15, and a total of almost £22 million over the next five years, in repairing roads and pavements in Aberdeen Ian Yuill said “Too many of our city’s roads and pavements are crumbling. Council staff fight a constant battle with potholes – and all too often the potholes seem to win. What the council must do is invest more in the permanent repair and resurfacing of roads and pavements to bring them back to an acceptable standard. In the long-run that will reduce the cost of jet-patching and other less permanent repairs.

“Sadly Aberdeen’s Labour and Conservative councillors rejected our carefully costed proposal to invest nearly £22 million in road and pavement repairs over the next five years.”

The Liberal Democrats also proposed abolishing “on street” Sunday parking charges and ending both on and off street parking charges on other days at 6.30pm, rather than the current 8pm.

“The Liberal Democrats believe ending on street parking charges on Sunday and making on and off street parking free after 6.30pm would help bring more people back into our city centre on Sunday’s and weekday evenings. The council should be encouraging people to come into the city centre and not making it more expensive for people” said Ian Yuill.

As part of their revenue and capital budget proposals the Liberal Democrats also proposed investing:

– £50,000 to plant approximately 500 street trees

– £50,000 in installing additional bus shelters

– £50,000 to fund a flood guard grant scheme to help households threatened by flood

– £50,000 in small scale environmental initiatives, providing dog waste bins and warning signs

Ian Yuill concluded “The Liberal Democrats’ proposals were carefully costed and focused on targeting additional investment in education, properly repairing roads and pavements and improving our city’s environment.

“Despite the rejection of this by Labour and Conservative councillors today we will continue to campaign for greater investment in our children’s future, action to repair our crumbling roads and pavements and more effort to improve Aberdeen’s environment.”