Liberal Democrat councillors have been given lead roles in the delivery of two major new initiatives agreed by Warwickshire County Council at the end of a marathon twelve hour budget setting meeting on Thursday evening.

Cllr Jerry Roodhouse (Lib Dem, Rugby Eastlands & Hillmorton) will chair a new Children’s Wellbeing Board, with the Council committing funding of £3.8 million over three years to developing a much needed 0-5 Strategy for Children, focussing on the health and wellbeing of children. The objective is to give each and every child the best start in life, with the key measure being “school readiness” at age 5, where Warwickshire currently lags behind both regional and national averages, particularly for children from deprived backgrounds.

Cllr John Whitehouse (Lib Dem, Kenilworth Abbey) will lead a cross-party member taskforce to improve traffic, road and cycling safety in the vicinity of Warwickshire’s schools, with committed funding of over £3 million to deliver both minor improvements and road safety engineering solutions such as advisory speed limits and school safety zones. The objective is to work with individual schools and local councillors to define and deliver the most appropriate set of safety improvements in each case, not a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Other major investments approved by the Council include £4 million to accelerate the roll-out of energy-efficient LED street lighting across the county, and £4.17 million towards extending the coverage of superfast broadband to 98% of Warwickshire households by the end of 2018.

Previous plans to cut funding to the voluntary and community sector have been stopped. However, the need for the sector to change and adapt to new challenges has been recognised, and a £500,000 Transformation Fund will be set up to help existing front-line community-based providers to move to new and sustainable ways of delivering services.

Cllr Roodhouse, who leads the nine-strong Liberal Democrat group on the County Council, said:

“For the second year running Liberal Democrats have set the pace in the budget setting process, and had a major influence on the budget agreed by the Council, even though we are the third largest group. The difference this year is that John Whitehouse and I have been given direct responsibilities for making things happen in two major initiatives which are very dear to our hearts. We relish this new challenge.”