Tag: labour

Thank you for re-electing your local Labour team in Thurlow Park!

Thank you to the almost two and a half thousand local residents who voted for us at the recent local elections – we are grateful that you have put your trust in us to continue working hard in Thurlow Park. We love this ward and are looking forward to the next four years of working with you to make it an even better place.

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You can see the full breakdown of results here.

vote breakdown

We stood on our record of the past four years, and on five ambitious local pledges for the next four years:

  1. Prioritise road safety: We will continue to invest in roads and pavements, remove the Tulse Hill one-way system, and campaign for further safety measures.
  2. Secure investment: We will be a positive voice for Thurlow Park so that we can continue to secure millions of pounds investment in improvements in the ward.
  3. Support town centres: Having set up West Norwood’s BID, we will continue to help our town centres to thrive, including creating a new market by Tulse Hill station.
  4. Invest in the public realm: We will tackle flytipping & antisocial behaviour and improve the public realm on local shopping parades with new trees, bins & benches.
  5. Tackle air pollution: We will improve air quality by working with schools to plant green screens, campaigning for cleaner buses and encouraging walking & cycling.

As part of Lambeth Labour, we stood on an ambitious manifesto for the borough too. You can read the full manifesto here. Some of the pledges we are really excited to champion include –

  • Cracking down on rogue landlords and improving private renting
  • Supporting those residents who are struggling to make ends meet with new employment opportunities and expanding further our work on the London Living Wage
  • Welcoming refugee families to Lambeth
  • Tackling homelessness and building new homes at council rent, as well as innovative new community-led housing and new ways to give our existing tenants and leaseholders more say on improvements on their estate
  • Boosting recycling, electric vehicle charging points, another 1,000 trees by 2022, and a ban on single use plastics for the council and its contractors
  • Becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and divesting our pension fund from fossil fuels
  • Fighting Tory police cuts and a community-focused approach to tackling youth violence and knife crime
  • Continuing to lead on tackling violence against women and girls
  • Introducing tougher sanctions on our estates for noisy and nuisance neighbours and improving the borough-wide antisocial noise service
  • Fighting for fair funding for schools, supporting youth projects and creating over 1,500 apprenticeships for Lambeth’s young people
  • Tackling loneliness with a new good neighbour befriending scheme, training new mental health champions, innovative projects to improve health and wellbeing like the Daily Mile in schools and Health Parks
  • Creating affordable workspace and supporting local businesses
  • Fighting for better train services and helping people walk and cycle more safely.

Although long, it isn’t an exhaustive list and we would love to hear from you about what you’d like us working on and championing. Comment below or email us with your ideas!

Former MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, Tessa Jowell, recently spoke with great courage about having a “clear sense of purpose” despite being diagnosed with brain cancer last year.

As local community activists we very much appreciated her warm support, and generous time as we campaigned to be Thurlow Park’s three Lambeth councillors, and have endeavoured to continue her relentless work for those in the community, and in always seeing the best in people.

There was warm round of applause for Tessa Jowell at our recent Full Council meeting and we also wanted to add our thanks and good wishes to her and family at this time.

Lambeth’s budget 2016/17

Since 2010 Lambeth
has had its
budget reduced by 56% – that’s more than £200 million
– which has had a
devastating effect on the borough’s finances, especially as the majority of Lambeth’s budget doesn’t come from council tax. 

Lambeth’s budget for 2016/17 follows
another round of national cuts from central government. 

The council
also confirmed that in order to support existing services, it will be raising Council Tax by 1.99%,
along with the additional 2% Government precept for Adult Social Care.

Cllr Peck, the
leader of Lambeth Labour, writing
in her blog has said that: “This is undoubtedly the most
difficult economic situation the council has ever faced with the current
government imposing cut after cut. The idea that local authorities such as Lambeth can
keep finding new things to cut is farcical. But we are determined to get through it, protecting the
most vulnerable and finding new ways to provide the basic services which keep
our communities thriving. We
all have to work together and do our bit through these difficult times and I’m
confident the people of Lambeth can rise to this challenge.”

In practical terms, this changes mean
the council will be reducing its size with fewer staff employed – reductions
will have to be made in most areas, including the cultural services budget. We’re having to drive more efficiencies with our partners in areas like public health and social care, doing all we can protect frontline adult and children social care services as much as possible, protecting our important work around Violence Against Women and Girls, continuing to support those affected by Government welfare reforms and spending more on Council Tax support for those who can’t afford to pay.

In such harsh financial
circumstances, as your three Labour councillors, we will continue to work hard for residents’ needs. 

The next full council meeting will be when we vote on our budget, so we wanted to share some information on context and changes ahead. If anyone has questions about the budget, please get in touch.