Lincolnshire County Council’s current leader Martin Hill writes on the importance of voting on May 1

Thursday, May 1, is an important day in our calendar, writes Lincolnshire County Council leader Martin Hill (Con).

The voters of Lincolnshire will have the opportunity to not only choose your county councillors but your first Greater Lincolnshire mayor for the next four years.

These days many voters take the postal vote option and will already have received a ballot in the post, so in that sense the voting is already underway.

However, that vote will only be opened with all the others after 10pm on May 1. In a first for Lincolnshire, the count for the mayor will be overnight on the Thursday with an expected result in the early hours of Friday. The council votes will be counted later that day with results expected around lunchtime. Exciting times for the future of our great county.

But whilst local elections do not generate the attention of national elections, they are extremely important to the daily life of our residents and how our local services are run.

The county council is responsible for many vital services such as adult social care which makes sure that thousands of vulnerable adults get home support and residential care if necessary.

Our children’s services protect hundreds of children at risk or without a family. within this area, a vital service in our rural county is organising home to school transport for 25,000 pupils.

Our highways department maintain 5,500miles of roads in Lincolnshire as well as ensuring signs and verges are kept up to scratch. And although we are looking forward to summer, don’t forget we maintain a fleet of 43 winter gritters for frosty weather.

Our fire and rescue service don’t just put out fires, we also deal with traffic accidents, rescues and most importantly preventative measures in our society.

The county council also promote support to businesses, deal with waste and recycling centres, run 15 core libraries and 30-odd voluntary ones. I’m sure you have seen in the media the sterling work our trading standard team provide in both advice and the ensuring enforcement. All the while we are promoting tourism, manage our heritage sites and support the vital work of the NHS across the county.

And not to forget that In these difficult financial times we have carefully budgeted to ensure there is capital investment to continue to build new bypasses, schools, fire stations, libraries, residential care facilities and special schools.

The most important thing we ask you to do is to vote on May 1. Hopefully you will take the opportunity to choose to give continuity at the county council to run these important services and oversee the staff and the budget, spent across this county, your taxes pay for.