Antony Little for Norwich South

Norwich’s Conservative Parliamentary Candidates today welcomed David Cameron’s major policy paper outlining Conservative plans to give power back to communities.The proposals include stripping EEDA and the other Regional Development Agencies of their powers over planning; and giving local authorities in the region the power to establish their own local enterprise partnerships to take over development functions from RDAs.

In addition, the Conservatives will end all forced amalgamations of local authorities. The next Conservative government will stop the unitary restructuring plans for Norfolk and Suffolk, where recent delays mean the process will not have reached a conclusion prior to the next general election.

And furthermore, a Conservative government will introduce a new system that uses local referendums to control the level of local taxation.

Antony Little, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Norwich South, said:

“In the current economic downturn the last thing that millions of families need is yet another increase in their council tax bill. That is why I welcome these proposals on top of our existing policy which, for the first two years of a Conservative government, allows councils to contract with Whitehall to freeze council tax.”

Chloe Smith, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Norwich North, said:

“The next election won’t just be about whether to transfer power from Labour to the Conservatives. It will also be about whether to transfer power from Whitehall to us here locally. We can have an end to house building targets if we want it; we can have a way to hold the likes of Norwich City Council to account when it abuses our tax money by giving sheltered housing to its own employees; we can stop the unwanted, expensive unitary government proposals.”

A leading Norwich politician has welcomed support to assist charities through the recession but has called for help to go “even further”.Antony Little, Conservative Parliamentary spokesman for Norwich South, made his comments as a £40m package to help the voluntary sector was announced by the Government.

Mr Little, who is also a Bowthorpe ward councillor, said: “Like so many businesses in the UK, charities are suffering hard from the credit crunch. Their incomes are falling due to interest rates and declining donations, and this has been compounded by the fallout from the Icelandic banking collapse. I warmly welcome any support to help the voluntary sector help those in need.

“Yet this comes at a time when the Government is slashing funding to the Citizens Advice Bureau by crudely restructuring the way that legal advice is provided to local communities. It seems that what the Government gives with one hand, it takes away with another. The Government’s talk about helping charities needs to be matched by action and must go even further.”