Tim Farron
Main Page: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)Department Debates - View all Tim Farron's debates with the HM Treasury
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Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Westmorland and Furness council has seen its budget cut by 31%. We are England’s largest and most rural council. Yet the Government have decided to defund rural communities, which is juxtaposed with the fact that we have the biggest number of visitors to our communities of anywhere in the country apart from London: we have 20 million visitors a year, alongside all the cars that use our roads. We have 3,000 miles of roads, including the Kirkstone pass, which has been closed since November because of expensive work that needs to be done to connect the communities around England’s two biggest lakes, Windermere and Ullswater. We have 1,000 historical bridges, including Eamont Bridge, where Æthelstan created England in 927. We are proud to be the custodians of England’s Lake District national park, and we are appalled that our visitors, and more importantly our residents, are being thrown to the wolves by a Government who have decided to defund rural England.