Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats

Local Liberal Democrat activists in West Herts have had a busy year so far. Teams from Dacorum have been involved in a series of elections both local and further afield ... and at every level.

First up was the Parliamentary by-election in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Despite far-fetched predictions of a Conservative gain ... it was of course a LIB DEM WIN.

Lib Dem MEP for the East of England has backed calls from his colleague Sarah Ludford, the ALDE group shadow rapporteur on the update of EU data protection law, is demanding that an 'anti-FISA' clause be reintroduced in the text of the proposed new Regulation.

They want to ensure that EU customers are shielded from US National Security Agency data-mining authorised by the Patriot Act and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, such as the recently revealed 'PRISM' programme.

The G8 meeting in Northern Ireland should make a clear statement on the escalating crisis in Turkey. I have written to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and to EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso to urge as many of the G8 leaders as possible not to miss the opportunity of their meeting to condemn the provocative stance adopted by Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan.

Liberals and Democrats today rallied around a pragmatic solution which will allow the next Parliament to integrate the new Croatian MEPs without upsetting the overall balance of the Parliament's composition. The European Parliament meeting for the Strasbourg plenary session decided overwhelmingly for a distribution of seats between Member States resulting from an empirical method, based on the desire to minimize deviations from the current situation.

Following the sad death of John Lythgoe of Hall Park, Berkhamsted,the former Liberal Democrat Town Councillor, a By Election is to be held on Thursday June 13th to fill the vacancy in the Berkhamsted East Ward of the Berkhamsted Town Council.

The Liberal Democrat candidate is local resident Danny Bonnett. Danny graduated in engineering at Cambridge University and, now a Chartered Engineer, worked for Arup, the well-known engineering design consultancy for several years before joining RES in Kings Langley some 10 years ago.

Andrew Duff, the East of England's Lib Dem Euro MP has welcomed the strong proposal of Commissioner Neelie Kroes to abandon mobile roaming charges in Europe by Easter 2014. By then, Kroes said, the EU could deliver legislation to end these charges on consumers using a mobile phone outside their home country.

Europe's common fisheries policy is set for radical reform after negotiators for EU governments and the European Parliament reached agreement in Brussels at 03.20 this morning.

Supporters of the deal claim that it paves the way for rebuilding Europe's depleted fish stocks and curbing the discard of millions of tonnes of fish each year.

Councillors and residents have been horrified to learn that First Capital Connect intends to fell many of the trees alongside the car park on Ridgmont Road.

A letter was dropped to a small number of residents - but by no means all those who would be affected. Councillors were not consulted or informed.

St Albans police station is to become a half empty office block under plans sneaked out by the Police Commissioner just after the elections. There will be no front desk so if you need to hand in a document or speak to someone face to face, you'll have to drive to Hatfield or Watford.

Deputy Leader of the St Albans Liberal Democrat Group, Chris White said: 'There was a plan to get rid of large police stations and get the police closer to residents in shop fronts in various parts of the district.