In last Friday’s Watford Observer I was very surprised to see so many ’column inches’ devoted to Baroness D Thornhill, Cllr. S Giles-Medhurst and the Lib-Dem Three Rivers District council who have increased my council tax by more than three per cent in each of the last five years.

I note that Lib Dem Councils officially declare a ‘climate emergency’ and then promote vast unnecessary pavement rebuilding schemes without mentioning the impact on the environment.

Over £4 million was spent on a ‘revamp’ of the Watford Parade and High Street, mostly involving digging up paving stones then laying new ones in ’meaningful’ patterns.

At the time (2012) Mayor Thornhill also supported a massive rebuild of The Harlequin shopping centre. The intu complex construction plan also caused the well-loved market to be moved out to an impractical location.

Since the election of Lib Dem mayor Peter Taylor, we have endured disruption to Clarendon Road whilst vast pavement alterations have been made.

Watford Junction forecourt was ‘revived’ with “new paving, lighting, planting, seating and signage”. There are now seven massive coloured letters randomly orientated in a bizarre mixture of upper and lower case letters spelling out WATFORD. Not practical and a very expensive nonsense!

Additionally, the Watford Observer informed us that it was the intention of the Mayor, Peter Taylor, to have St Albans Road pavements dug up and all the ‘street furniture’ replaced!

The expected cost is £400,000 for the St Albans Road work and presumably a sum around £500,000 for the station forecourt but what about the detrimental cost to the environment?

How many tons of water are used and tons of CO2 produced in the manufacture of the materials required for these projects?

Lib Dem councils claim ‘green credentials’ so they must publish a proper ‘green audits’ for all the projects or lay themselves open to claims of hypocrisy.

David Bennett,

College Road, Abbots Langley