Today?s meeting also saw the appointment of a new Chairman of Essex County Council, Councillor Elizabeth Hart. The Chairman acts as the civic head of the organisation as well as representing our county. Elizabeth has been a passionate representative of Essex for a number of years, and I am sure she will do a wonderful job as Chairman. I would also like to thank our outgoing Chairman, Councillor Gerard McEwen, who has been a tremendous ambassador for Essex County Council over the past two years.

I started this morning giving evidence to the A12 Inquiry which Sir David Rowlands, the man who used to run Britain's roads, is holding. I told him of the concerns of the hundreds of people who write to me telling me about the problems they suffer and the costs that they incur because of the persistant delays on the road. After I left the hotseat, the Highways Agency, Police and Regional Assembly were due to give evidence and I will be listening to their evidence with great interest. I told Sir David he has my full confidence in coming up with solutions for the A12 which has ignominiously been named in a report as Britain's Worst Road.

I then attended Writtle College where some wonderful work is being done by the college, and the Centre for Environment and Rural Affairs, with the Essex Agricultural Society in helping to give schoolchildren across the county a better understanding of food production and the role agriculture play here in the county of Essex. Food production in Essex remains of great importance for our economy and although there are changes in the new global world it is still vital to recognise that agriculture plays an important role in our lives and helps create a better quality of life for our residents.

I use the road myself and have grown increasingly frustrated along with thousands of road users at our government's apparent unwillingness to do what is necessary to sort out the problems of this major road. Our launch received a lot of interest in the national media and commentators have praised our efforts but now I want to turn that interest into action and with Sir David's help to find long term solutions to the problems facing the A12.

However, this is exactly what local government should be doing. Identifying local needs and priorities and delivering on them for local communities. The principle of allowing local people and their representatives to run and deliver local services has once again been underlined here. Let me also stress that this is also not about replacing one public subsidy with another. Our intention is very clear; the money that we will be investing on behalf of the people of Essex will be used, over the course of the next three years, to help each branch to move, as far as possible, to become financial self-sufficient and cost neutral to the council. I have had a lot of calls from councils around the country about the possibility of copying what we are trying to do, so it is therefore gratifying to know that ECC is leading the way nationally in fighting on behalf of its communities.    

I will make sure that resources within the Council will be focused on making a real difference through the EssexWorks programme, and providing value for money will have even more emphasis than it does now. The things closest to your hearts will become our priorities.

Our nine pledges are centred around Our People, Our Economy and Our World. 

·         Support young people in Essex to fulfil their sporting potential

·         Increase by ten fold the number of ASC users who, through personal budgets, have greater choice and control over their care

·         Introduce radical initiatives to ensure diverse, high-quality secondary schools in every area of the county

·         Deliver 12 congestion-busting schemes across the county

·         Keep next year?s Council Tax increase below the level of inflation

·         Promote Essex?s ?Year of Culture? to increase tourism and inward investment

·         Make Essex the safest place to live in England within five years

·         Increase recycling of waste to more than 40% in 2008 in partnership with the Districts

·         Plant an additional 250,000 trees to support the ecology of Essex

It was a very difficult decision for us and we were proud of all of our lucky finalists. All three schools gave superb performances, their enthusiasm demonstrating just how The Games is already proving to be one of our most positive educational resources. The winning school will send six pupils and one teacher to take up coveted seats at the spectacular closing ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games later this summer.

And ECC will be putting the proceeds of the sale to good use. Last year, one young driver a month lost their life on Essex roads as a result of their own actions. Consequently we are putting more effort than ever before in ensuring a young person passing his or her driving test leads to an increase in their personal freedom and not a drop in his of her life expectancy. The money raised from the sale will go to the education and training of young drivers. Hundreds of young and recently passed drivers will be given help to take the Pass Plus test, which gives advanced training in driving techniques. The test, designed by the Driver Standards Agency, gives youngsters knowledge of how to drive on motorways and in poor weather conditions, all thanks to 'F1'.

I would just like to wish everyone a very happy and peaceful Christmas. I am taking a few days off and will be spending it with my family and friends and I hope that many of you will be able to do the same. I would also just like to thank all those county council staff who will be working over the festive period in order to keep crucial services running. It is appreciated. Thank you.    

It is clear to me that they had no intention of listening to what residents, and indeed their customers, really wanted. Indeed having looked at the Post Office Ltd decision announcements for the four areas nationally that so far have been reported, in each case, Post Office Ltd decided not to close 2 or 3 sub-post offices. This looks rather suspiciously as though someone made a decision at the beginning of the process that they would give in on two or three in order to give the appearance of listening to respondents. That aside, six weeks was not nearly enough time to fully appreciate the impact these closures will have and Post Office Ltd have given insufficient justification for ignoring information provided to them during the consultation. Now we are meant to believe that they will actually listen during the consultation on the two new post offices that are under threat of closure. It really is a joke. It is a real betrayal of the residents who have made their views very clearly known through a variety methods and petitions; just to ignore this is a blatant disregard of the consultation process. We will continue to fight these closures using every avenue and opportunity we have in the remaining weeks that we have left until they start closing.

Essex commuters know it and a recent report?s confirmed the A12 is the UK?s worst road for congestion. Nearly every week we are seeing major disruption on this government-operated road which is losing thousands, even millions of pounds for our businesses and delaying people on a regular basis. The A12 is run not by ECC but by the Highways Agency ? a government quango. Time and again I have told them that we need to increase capacity in order to tackle congestion issues. We also need to get better at reopening such roads quickly after such incidents. My colleague Norman Hume, who is responsible for transport in the county, has written today to the Transport Minister asking for an urgent meeting so that we can raise these issues. ECC had already joined forces with MPs, and other local authorities in October to call for urgent action after you will remember the A12 and the nearby main line were closed in both directions for over a day following a van fire. It is simply unacceptable there are still no concrete plans from government to improve the A12 to the level required. We need some action this time.