Adur Council Leader Neil Parkin joins "The Glums"

4.25.18pm GMT Thu 17th Apr 2008

On last Sunday's BBC South Politics show Worthing Borough Lib Dem Deputy Leader Geraldine Lissenburg overcame a broken wrist suffered during canvassing to deliver a virtual knock-out punch to Adur Council Leader Neil Parkin.

Questioned by presenter Caroline Richardson on what savings have been made by the joint-working partnership, Councillor Parkin gave a "guesstimate" of £4 million pounds by 2011. Probed on what savings have been made in the first year the Adur Leader failed to answer referring to the cost of redundancies - the guesstimate of £ 500,000 Councillor Parkin made in the local press last year appeared to have slipped his memory.

Turning to the current local elections Councillor Parkin prided himself on the good Adur turnout of about 40% - this also turns out to be a guesstimate as Adur has been lucky to get a 20% turnout in recent years.

Councillor Parkin also prided himself on delivering "two pieces of paper" to the electorate during the current campaign - Geraldine immediately siezed on this poor effort to engage with the residents. Worthing Lib Dems have already delivered three issues of "Focus" in most areas this year and have still more to come before polling day on May 1st.

The Adur Leader grimaced and looked defeated - a candidate for "The Glums".

But Geraldine fought on, vowing the Lib Dems would fight the local election on local issues of real concern to the residents using the new swimming pool and Teville Gate as examples.

Geraldine commented afterwards:

"All we hear from the Conservatives both here in Worthing and in Adur are guesstimates. The one real figure we do know is the £ 790,000 spent on consultants since they came to power FOUR years ago - more than one year's council tax!"

"Defeating Neil Parkin was easy and despite of my injury will continue the local election fight on local issues and put an end to Tory waste and dithering and decision making based on "Guestimates".