The Lib Dems running BathNES Council will trial a new scheme to clear snow and ice this winter.

They are recruiting volunteer snow wardens to provide a community resource to help clear snow and ice intheir neighbourhood. The council will provide training, salt (depending on availability) and an appropriate spreader to enable locally prioritised areas of adopted public highway to be cleared of snow and ice.

The pilot scheme will enable volunteers to keep more of our pavements clear of snow and ice. In particular the intendtion is to help make cleared routes on footways to bus stops so that people can reach public transport safely.

Please contact Cllr David Martin for more information if you are interested in volunteering.

The busy junction between Oakley and Claverton Down Road can prove difficult for drivers turning right. To improve visibility for those drivers coming up Widcombe Hill, Cllr David Martin has got the council to reposition the chevron sign on the pedestrian refuge. This means that the view on the right towards the university entrance is clearer.

Some of the parking zone signs along Bathwick Hill, Claverton Down Road and North Road were obscured by overhanging foliage, or simply dirty. Cllr Martin has also persuaded the council to clear up these signs so that the starting points of these zones are well marked and obvious.

This week I have been attending my tenth Liberal Democrat federal conference, held for the first time in Birmingham.

Conference is the sovereign body of the Liberal Democrats, devising policy and holding our party executive to account. A year into a coalition many were asking would conference remain the radical, independent heart of our party. Media interest in particular was heightened, searching for divisions within the party membership.

To my recollection, every Lib Dem conference has been billed by the press as ‘make or break’ for the party leader, required to make the ‘speech of his life’ on every occassion – whether Nick Clegg, Ming Campbell or Charles Kennedy. Like every conference before it, my experience was of an optimistic, united and spirited gathering – as liberals should be!

I was especially proud to be in the conference hall when Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat minister for equalities anounced the introduction of gay marriage, to be consulted upon in the spring. The Lib Dems have always been in the van guard of equalities campaigning and I am proud that we are delivering on this in government.

Conference also proved its radical heritage with resolutions against the gay blood ban, to reform adult social care and incapacity benefits and in favour of drugs liberalisation, an econimic and environmental stimulus and an elected second parliamentary chamber.

Finally, photographed is the Bath & North East Somerset team, which I led, collecting our party’s top campaign award in recognition of our success in the local elections. This makes two successive wins, so I’m looking forward to 2012.

Bathwick local councillor Nicholas Coombes has been appointed to the board of trustees for the Holburne Museum.

At the first AGM of the trustees since the re-opening of the museum new appointments were made on behalf of the University of Bath and Bath & North East Somerset Council. Soon after his election Nicholas spoke in favour of extending the Holburne at the council Planning Committee and supported the project at subsequent meetings. He has contributed towards cycle parking at the museum from his devolved funding and in 2005 gave a piano recital in the top gallery.

The second exhibition in the new Roper Gallery is due to open on Saturday 24th September. Gainsborough Landscapes explores the less well know side of the artists work, while at the same time, the Holburne has taken loan of a new Gainsborogh portrait, of Henry Beaufoy MP.

Nicholas Coombes has moved home from 8 to 19 Cleveland Court; the new flat has a view of Bath Abbey.

Cleveland Court is at the heart of Bathwick, at the junction of Bathwick Hill and Cleveland Walk. His postcode remains BA2 6JY. With Cllr David Martin living on Claverton Down, both of our Liberal Democrat councillors remain truly local.

The local election is today.

If you appreciate the work that David, Armand and I have done for Bathwick ward over the past four years, please vote for us.