Northampton Lib Dems head to Brighton buoyed by Council Success

10.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 12th Sep 2007

Brighton is bracing itself for the arrival of thousands of Liberal Democrats for the party's conference next week and amongst those attending will be local councillors and members from Northampton.

The number of Northampton Lib Dems going to Conference will be at an all time high following the party's success in winning control of Northampton Borough Council at the local elections in May.

Northampton North Parliamentary Candidate Andrew Simpson will be taking his campaign team with him to conference to take part in the debates and brush up on their skills in training sessions in preparation for a General Election possibly as early as this October.

Amongst those going are newly elected Lib Dem Councillors, Portia Wilson, Malcolm Mildren, Jenny Conroy, Sadik Chaudhury and Scott Collins. As well as this the new Leader of Northampton Borough Council, Cllr Tony Woods will be visiting as will Deputy Leader Cllr Brendan Glynane and Cllrs Trini Crake, Richard Church, Sally Beardsworth, David Garlick and Jane Hollis.

"The theme of our conference is the environment," said Andrew Simpson "The big debates will focus on the need to cut down on pollution and to shift the burden of tax from income and onto greenhouse gas emissions.

"Our plans will mean national income tax will be cut from 20p to 16p in the pound and council tax will be scrapped. We will pay for these by shifting the tax burden onto the most polluting, gas-guzzling cars and onto aircraft that cause environmental damage.

"Over the next three weeks, people in Northampton will see all three party conferences in action. What is different about ours is that members take real decisions on policy. The Conservatives have discussions but no votes whilst at Labour conference, the Labour leadership either ignores votes or has stopped debates from taking place."