TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 FOR THE MAYOR AND LOCAL ELECTIONS, 3 MAY

“ I’ve delivered on my promises. Now I want you to know how Labour will fight for our borough over the next four years”

John Biggs Labour Candidate for Mayor of Tower Hamlets

Our Record – Cleaning Our Streets, Cleaning Up Our Air – Making Tower Hamlets Safer – Putting Young People at the Heart of All We Do – Fighting the Housing Crisis – Tackling Poverty and Inequality – Being On Your Side 2/3 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 Poverty Fund to assist those residents hardest If you share our vision, our values and our – hit by this Government’s benefit cuts and commitment to making Tower Hamlets better austerity. We have been investing in cleaning for everyone who lives here, please support us up our streets, after deep cuts by the previous at this election, electing myself as your mayor FOREWORD mayor made our borough dirtier than ever – and your Labour councillors in your own ward. BY JOHN BIGGS, LABOUR CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR OF TOWER HAMLETS we aren’t yet where we want to be on this but we’re starting to turn things around. And Together we can build a cleaner, safer, we’ve been paying to put police back on the fairer Tower Hamlets. streets, to counteract the loss of almost 300 police and community support officers due to In the coming weeks, you will decide which Conservative austerity cuts. direction our borough goes in by electing your executive mayor and ward councillors. Second, this manifesto is about looking forward to what we can achieve together over the I want you to be clear about what I would do next four years – a vision of a borough that is if you re-elect me as your mayor. It’s a job that clean and well-looked after, where our air is affects the daily lives of everyone who lives cleaner and our streets and estates are safer; here, especially as we continue to return the of a borough that is fairer, with more access Our record of achievements: John Biggs with Tower Hamlets Labour Council to the mainstream after the corruption to affordable housing and more of our most • We have cleaned up the of the previous independent mayor and fight local election candidates disadvantaged residents achieve their potential; to protect services from deep Conservative and about a Council that is run to the highest council and got the finances austerity cuts. allegation of corruption, we have delivered on standards, delivering high quality services under control this promise, enabling the Government last efficiently and fairly. The Labour Party is a party of social justice, year to hand back the running of all parts of • We have invested in extra equality and the fundamental belief that we the Council it had taken over. But this progress Finally, it is about our Labour values. A vision police officers to tackle drug achieve more together than we achieve alone. in not assured – we are still under scrutiny and that has at its core the celebration of the crime and ASB This manifesto sets outs how we will run our with two of the former mayor’s councillors heritage and diversity that makes Tower borough for the benefit of all of our residents, running to be mayor, a return to the problems of Hamlets so special and a commitment to work • We are delivering 1,000 new ensuring that the most disadvantaged receive the past is a risk that hasn’t gone away. to ensure that as a community we understand council houses and tackling significant support to transform their life each other better, not just living parallel lives in chances, whilst also delivering excellent I also promised to focus the Council back on the same place. And a commitment that, where rogue landlords universal services for everyone that lives here. the core issues of concern to local people, and we can’t deliver something on our own – for • We have launched WorkPath we have done that too. We are well on the way example because it needs the Government This manifesto is about three essential things to deliver the 1,000 new council homes we to change the law – we will be a campaigning to help thousands of our that you will need to consider as you vote for promised in 2015, have made new tenancies council, fighting alongside our residents to bring residents into work your mayor and councillors. genuinely affordable for local people and now positive change for their benefit. • We have got the school license landlords to improve the quality of First, it’s about our record of achievement. When privately rented homes. We’ve got the school We can do a lot at the Town Hall, but we need places crisis under control and I was elected in June 2015 after the previous places crisis under control, protected our two other things too. First, for you to help us improved our youth service independent mayor was removed for corrupt Children’s Centres, and ensured that there is to achieve these goals – a community working and illegal practices, I promised that I would good quality youth work in every part of our together. Second, whilst we will continue to do • We are investing to clean up return our Council to the mainstream, cleaning borough. We’ve launched our flagship WorkPath more with less and to fight austerity, cuts – in our streets and increase our up his mismanagement. From getting the employment service, helping thousands of health, in education, in policing, in housing – are recycling rate finances under control to investigating every local people into work, and set up a Tackling hurting us all and we need a Labour Government. 4/5 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – LABOUR’S RECORD WE ARE WELL ON OUR WAY TO COMPLETING THE PLEDGES WE MADE TO YOU IN 2015. HERE ARE JUST A FEW:

John Biggs with Henry Moore’s sculpture Old Flo, now back in the borough

In 2015, we said we would: Our progress today

Abolish the previous mayor’s chauffeur Done on day one Take a balanced approach to development Planning policies are now being revised driven car in the borough to better manage development

Clean up grant-making Grant-making process totally reformed Create a Tower Hamlets Apprenticeship The mayor’s Apprenticeship Commitment with all decisions now taken in public Exchange is helping create 1,000 new apprenticeships Scrap the previous mayor’s £15 bulk Now collected for free, saving residents waste charge money and cutting dumping Nurture new entrepreneurs through Our Whitechapel Enterprise Centre Start-Up Centres opened in July offering free expert advice Reduce the number of missed waste Missed collections falling but still collections more to do Urgently tackle lack of primary Additional places provided and 94% school places now get 1st or 2nd choice Stop the sale of the borough’s Henry Old Flo now back in the borough Moore sculpture Old Flo Expand free school meals to all All primary pupils now get free primary pupils school meals Prioritise neighbourhood policing 39 new police officers paid for by the Council Strengthen youth facilities across Youth clubs now running six days a the borough week in every part of the borough Produce a Violence Against Women Launched in 2016 & Girls Strategy No child more than a short walk from a We have created five new pocket parks high quality outdoor play area Plan the building of 1,000 new 260 built, 249 in planning, and the rest Council homes on the way Improve the provision of social care Ethical Care Charter ensures no 15 minute by the Council visits, no zero hours contracts Create a Landlord Licensing Scheme Set up and running with thousands and workers paid properly signed up 6/7 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS CLEANING OUR STREETS. CLEANING UP OUR AIR.

We will deliver a cleaner, greener Tower to council, social housing and private estates Hamlets, with 10 new pocket parks and blocks that want them. We will work with and 1,000 new trees, safer streets for businesses to improve their access to, and pedestrians and cyclists, and cleaner air for use of, recycling services. We will install water everyone to breathe. fountains in public places across the borough, introduce a Tower Hamlets water bottle and We have reversed many of the previous mayor’s work with small business to establish a re- cuts in street cleaning and scrapped his bulk usable cup scheme for the whole borough. waste charge that had increased dumping. We will enforce tougher standards for cleaning We will continue the mayor’s Neighbourhood our streets and work with social and private Refresh programme to remove clutter, repair landlords to improve the cleanliness of the broken pavements, and install trees and traffic borough’s estates. We will continue to roll out calming measures. We will plant 1,000 street ‘Smart bins’ across the borough to keep our trees and install 50 ‘green benches’ with streets tidy, introduce recycling into street planting and cycle parking. bins, and encourage residents and visitors to keep their litter off the streets. We will bring Our many award-winning parks are the green in a Graffiti and Street Art policy, specifying lungs of our borough. We will invest £13million how and where street art will be allowed and in a parks investment programme, prioritising adopting a zero tolerance approach to graffiti those – like Allen Gardens and King Edward and tagging everywhere else, increasing Memorial Park - needing improvement, and will investment in our graffiti removal team. deliver at least 10 new pocket parks, particularly in areas of severe open-space shortage. We are committed to increasing our recycling rate to 35% by 2022, up from 28% currently, Commercial events in parks – from small with the long term ambition of recycling the markets and charity fun runs to the major majority of our waste. To achieve this we will All Points East festival in Victoria Park - are introduce a recycling incentive scheme, expand enjoyed by thousands of people and raise food waste recycling to blocks of flats where much needed revenue. But they cannot detract practical, and provide community composters from the free enjoyment of our parks and the 8/9 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS CLEANING OUR STREETS. CLEANING UP OUR AIR. impacts on surrounding residents must not be for residents to live, work and travel through, going through it, serving the strategic Transport borough, increasing congestion and worsening too great. We will review our Commercial Events making them safer, more attractive and for London road network. Through-traffic air quality. in Parks policy to ensure that we do not over accessible for all residents in Tower Hamlets. should by and large stick to these main roads commercialise our public spaces. We will make cycling, walking and using but many of our residential neighbourhoods We will continue to install ‘Car Bike Ports’ public transport the best ways to travel in have seen huge increases in rat-running to expand bike parking in areas of high We will become London’s first Growing Tower Hamlets. We want to make it harder for traffic, making them more dangerous, noisy or growing demand and will work with Borough, supporting residents to create and commuters to use our borough as a car park, and polluted. We will create low traffic commercial landlords to increase commuter expand community food growing projects, and while letting local people go about their lives, neighbourhoods, keeping through-traffic to and resident cycle parking where we don’t starting a Streets in Bloom programme to allow recognising that for many carers and workers, a main roads, in any residential area where own the land.Our streets should be safe and residents to adopt and plant up tree pits and car or other vehicle is a necessary part of life. residents want them, with an ambition to more accessible to all residents. We will adopt planters in their neighbourhoods. have started on at least half of the borough’s a zero tolerance attitude to danger on our WE WILL BE THE BEST PLACE neighbourhoods by 2022. roads. We will maintain the borough’s 20MPH TRAFFIC AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN LONDON TO WALK AND CYCLE limit and take action with our partners to We recognise that many residents need their As a part of our strategy we will make Tower All new roadwork schemes in Tower Hamlets ensure that it is better enforced. We will work cars - for work, for family – but we recognise Hamlets friendlier for pedestrians and will have the London Cycling Design Standards to ensure that our roads are safe for cyclists too that levels of congestion and poor air cyclists, because this will make our borough applied to them and all cycling schemes will and that in return, cyclists cycle responsibly, quality mean that something must change. safer and healthier for everyone. be planned to cater for non-standard cycles, avoiding creating a danger for pedestrians. Electric and lower emissions cars will help, including disability adapted bikes, bike trailers, We will aim to reduce collisions involving although for many those are not easy to Through our planning process, the new Local cargo bikes and bikes adapted to carry small construction heavy goods vehicles by requiring afford and Government must help through Plan and our Green Grid Strategy, we will children. All new roadwork schemes will not all development sites in the borough to sign a scrappage scheme or other measures. We increase the number of low emissions routes detriment pedestrians or public transport users. up to the Construction Logistic Community will recognise the many essential reasons for walking and cycling. Safety (CLOCs) standards. residents and businesses have for driving Many of our residents do not have space in in our borough, including for family and We will update the Tower Hamlets Cycling their homes to securely store cycles and so we We will invest in making our bus stops more employment reasons, and will respect and Strategy to include all five strategic routes have introduced secure estate and on-street accessible and bus routes more reliable. We facilitate these. identified as having significant potential for cycle hangars. Demand has rapidly out-stripped will also lobby TfL to make more Tube stations cycling. We will prioritise these routes for supply and we will install an additional 100 on- step-free and to increase the Stratford to But we cannot stand still and wait - hundreds completion as high-quality, flagship cycling street cycle hangars. Canary Wharf DLR route to three car service, of local people die prematurely each year and routes by 2022. increasing capacity by 50%. We will increase our children’s lungs are permanently damaged We will work with Tower Hamlets Homes and car club provision – including by introducing by pollution. A Tower Hamlets child will have We will make a major investment in new other housing providers in the borough to point-to-point schemes across the borough - smaller and less developed lungs than a child Quietways, the network of cycling routes along ensure that every resident who needs it has and support them to swap to electric vehicles. where the air is clean. And anyone with a quieter streets and parks. access to suitable secure cycle parking, to allow We will explore ways we can provide support breathing problem – a child with asthma, or an residents to rent garages for cycle storage of and incentives for local residents to better adult with COPD - will suffer more in Tower We will actively support the proposal for a new non-conventional bikes that won’t fit in other use car clubs. And we will continue to support, Hamlets because of our poor quality air. We pedestrian and cycle crossing between Canary on-street and estate storage, and to stop the and lobby others for, accessible transport, and must help each other by changing behaviour. Wharf and Rotherhithe on the northern alignment. practice of renting garages and parking spaces specialist transport for individuals and carers to residents who live outside of Tower Hamlets for those with a disability, including dedicated We will make our roads and streets better Tower Hamlets has many main arterial roads and who use them to commute into the nearby parking. 10/11 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS CLEANING OUR STREETS. CLEANING UP OUR AIR.

We want to encourage all our residents to emissions and reducing fuel poverty. We will We will switch all of our street lights to low- make the best decisions in how they travel continue to fund a Carbon Emissions Reduction energy LEDs, reducing CO2 emissions and across the borough. Helping residents use programme across council buildings and schools energy costs by up to 80%, whilst improving active and sustainable travel, such as walking, to replace old polluting boilers, improve energy safety and visibility at the same time. cycling and public transport, is the best way to efficiency, and install renewable energy, such combat obesity, improve air quality and reduce as solar panels on roofs. We will ensure that the We will continue to campaign against the plans congestion. Council’s new town hall at Whitechapel is both for new bridges in Fish Island, which we believe air quality neutral and carbon zero. will dramatically increase rat running and We will invest in good quality road and footway pollution in the area. surfaces to reduce accidents and make all We will phase out all diesel vehicles from the journeys more pleasant. We will push for borough’s fleet and increase the number of Climate change not only represents a major better public transport services, working electric, hybrid and cleaner vehicles in their environmental risk to our planet but also a with Transport for London and developers place. We will introduce School Streets around significant financial risk to our pension fund, to make sure we have the right services and our primary schools to reduce the traffic through exposure to potentially stranded infrastructure for a growing and prosperous around our most polluted and congested assets. In order to mitigate this risk, ensuring Tower Hamlets. schools at drop-off and pick-up times. We will we always meet our fiduciary duty to scheme aim to cover half of our primary schools with members, we will progressively divest from WE WILL CAMPAIGN FOR this initiative. We will support residents to the top 200 fossil fuel companies, with the AND DELIVER CLEANER AIR introduce playing streets. ambition of having no holdings in these Air quality in Tower Hamlets is a public companies by 2022. health emergency, with over 40% of our Our planning policies will ensure that new residents living in, and 48 of our schools buildings are built to the highest carbon and air located in, areas that exceed safe levels. quality standards. Several hundred Tower Hamlets residents die early every year as a result of long-term We have already signed the UK100 pledge, exposure to air pollution, with many of committing the Council to achieve 100% clean our residents, particularly children and the energy across the borough by 2050, and will elderly, living with life-limiting conditions work with the public sector, business and such as asthma and heart conditions. residents to devise ambitious, cost-effective plans to deliver this. We will install additional air quality monitors across our borough so we can better We are already rolling out electric vehicle understand and tackle the local impacts of poor charging points across the borough to air quality. accelerate the take-up of electric vehicles, with an ambition to have 300 by 2025. We We will continue our Boiler Scrappage Scheme, will increase this target to 500 by 2025, with replacing old inefficient boilers and installing 250 installed by 2022. We will campaign to heating controls and insulation for residents persuade Transport for London to make all on a range of qualifying benefits, reducing buses zero emission. 12/13 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS MAKING TOWER HAMLETS SAFER

Since May 2010 when the Conservative our borough safer and to reduce the fear or Government was elected, Tower Hamlets crime, bringing together the police, schools, our has lost 197 police officers and 98 Police youth service and the community early in the Community Support Officers because of next mayoralty to consider what more can be Conservative austerity cuts. This has had done to protect our young people. a huge impact on the ability of the police to fight crime in our borough, forcing them Everyone must be free to enjoy their life, to prioritise the most serious crimes and respectfully and without fear. This includes ignore others. We will not stand by and reducing the risk or fear of crime against watch crime rise here. people because of their gender identity, race, faith, sexuality, disability, immigration status We will campaign against the Government’s or age. Alongside the fear or risk of crime on-going cuts to police budgets and demand we will celebrate and promote our borough’s that they reinstate police numbers to the levels diversity and the equal rights of all, including seen under the last Labour government. by challenging Islamophobia and anti-Semitism wherever it is found. The primary responsibility for tackling crime clearly lies with the police but we can do a We will continue to run our successful No Place number of things to support them, and to increase for Hate campaign, signing up residents and community safety. In response to police cuts, we organisations to work together to tackle hate have funded an additional 39 police officers to crime in our borough. We will work with the police work in Tower Hamlets and we have expanded to continue to improve reporting of, and response the Council’s Community Safety Team. We will to, hate crime. And we will work with our faith continue to pay for additional police officers to communities, civic bodies, campaign groups and patrol our streets and estates, prioritising tackling individual residents to make our streets a place the drug dealing and anti-social behaviour that where those that divide us will not be welcome. residents tell us is their top concern. We will actively challenge attempts to divide We will target hate crime and high profile crime us, particularly far-right attempts to target our such as knife crime and acid attacks to make Muslim community and mosques and we will 14/15 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS MAKING TOWER HAMLETS SAFER always stand side by side with those in our of the anti-social behaviour and violence in enable the police to stop dealing from cars as Effective action on ASB relies on good community who are, or who feel they are, being the borough, harming users, their families, it happens, and will support the police to seize intelligence and consistent, victim-centred targeted or attacked. This includes those EU and the wider community. Drug dealing is a cars used for dealing and to reduce the use of action on the ground. To deliver this, we will nationals who have experienced more hate criminal matter and responsibility for tackling hire cars for dealing. trial a Neighbourhood Management model, crime since the Brexit vote. it rests firmly with the police. However, the putting in place a Neighbourhood Manager Council will always use all of the powers We will invest in an innovative education and and local community wardens in areas where We acknowledge the concerns of some in our available to us to ensure that this is a priority awareness programme to young people about residents identify high levels of ASB. This will community with the Prevent programme, in for the police and that we do all we can to drugs and alcohol, including through schools be backed up by a Neighbourhood Agreement, particular its potential to stigmatise young reduce the negative impacts of drug use and and our network of youth centres. We will which sets out the minimum standards and people. Any such strategy can only work dealing on our community. continue to fund the Hidden Harms programme, the services that residents can expect from where it has the confidence and buy-in so that we can reduce the number of children partners to tackle ASB. of local people, including our large Muslim With the police, we have launched a number put at risk by drug and alcohol misuse or drug community. Following the example of the of operations, such as Operation Continuum dealing by a family member. Our CCTV network has over 350 cameras that Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, we will in early 2018, an aggressive programme to are monitored 24 hours a day. This network review the operation, successes and failures disrupt and reduce the sale of hard drugs, such The rapid escalation of nitrous oxide misuse enables the police to make three arrests every of Prevent with local partners and community as heroin and crack cocaine, in our communities. is a concern felt by many of our residents. Our day, often stopping crime whilst it’s happening. representatives, with the aim of developing We will support other operations to prioritise No Laughing Matter campaign targeted known We will continue to invest in our CCTV network a more effective radicalisation and counter- the reduction of heroin and crack cocaine use hotspots and increased education for young and will work closely with the police to ensure extremism strategy that better commands the and dealing in the borough, through joint action people about the dangers. We will use our that it is used effectively for preventing, confidence of our community. with the police to arrest and prosecute dealers. Trading Standards and enforcement teams to detecting and prosecuting crime. We will also reduce the sale of nitrous oxide and ‘legal highs’ continue to use our CCTV network to inform Likewise, stop and search continues to be a Each year, we invest £8million in our Drug and in the borough, as well as signing shops up to the police of drivers using Nitrous Oxide whilst practice that causes concern and tension within Alcohol service, helping over 350 residents our Acid Charter to reduce the sale of strong driving, enabling the police to intervene. our community. When based on intelligence, successfully complete treatment. We have acids which can be used to commit violent crime. properly focussed and performed professionally recently launched an enhanced Drug and Alcohol We will continue our successful work to reduce In some cases, good design can reduce ASB, for it is a vital tool for the police in keeping our service, improving access to recovery services the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to children. example by improving lighting. We will fund a community safe, particularly in fighting knife through GP surgeries, to support those in police Design Out Crime officer to design out and other violent crime. The introduction of recovery. We will continue to invest in specialist WE WILL PRIORITISE THE RESPONSE crime and anti-social behaviour across public body-worn cameras for all officers offers the and mainstream drug and alcohol dependency TO ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR spaces and estates and invest in designing out opportunity to improve stop and search and we treatment to reduce demand for drugs and Anti-social behaviour can have a devastating ASB from our parks. We will review street lighting will work with the police to improve its use in our enable users to improve their health and impact on residents and communities, across the borough, asking residents to nominate borough and to help them to engage with our wellbeing. We will ensure that the service meets undermining people’s ability to live in peace poorly lit areas for improved or new lighting. community to reduce concerns around its use. the varied cultural needs of our diverse borough. and severely damaging their quality of life. We know that for vulnerable residents it The night-time economy is an important part of WE WILL CRACK DOWN ON DRUG DEALING Many residents report visible drug dealing can have an even greater impact and can at a vibrant culture and economically successful AND REDUCE DRUG AND ALCOHOL MISUSE from cars as a major concern. We will use the times be life threatening. borough, and we will continue to support it to Drug misuse and dealing is a serious problem Council’s CCTV network – including the 32 thrive. However, ASB associated with poorly in Tower Hamlets, accounting for 52% of cameras equipped with Automatic Number We take ASB seriously and will make reducing managed night-time venues can cause serious all calls to the police here. It causes much Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology – to its impact on victims a major priority. problems for local people. We have introduced 16/17 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS MAKING TOWER HAMLETS SAFER a saturation policy for new licences on and programme, recruiting additional champions discuss how we can increase flexible and non- around Brick Lane, but many local residents amongst both frontline professionals and linear working in the borough, to enable more question its efficacy. We will review the Brick members of the public, and extending the parents with childcare responsibilities to work. Lane saturation policy to see whether it can programme to young people, so that Youth We will undertake a regular Gender Pay Audit to be made more effective at dealing with the Champions are available to other young people. ensure that, as an employer, we are leading the negative impacts of the night-time economy in way in tackling conscious and unconscious bias. the Spitalfields area. We have introduced a Late We will make women’s safety a key consideration Night Levy to create responsibility of venues to of the Council’s licensing policy and introduce We will support women to exit prostitution/sex improve the late night economy and minimise the Ask for Angela scheme to improve safety for work where they want to, also offering support impact on residents. We will use the money to women in the night-time economy. with housing, skills, parenting issues, health fund measures to reduce the impact from these and wellbeing, and will continue our innovative venues, including additional police patrols, noise We will continue to support and promote the Stop and Think programme, working to prevent monitoring and enforcement. East London Rape Crisis Service, continue to arrested kerb crawlers from reoffending. support the provision of IDVAs and Violent We will support the Mayor of London’s WE WILL MAKE TOWER HAMLETS Crime Caseworkers and develop a One Stop #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign to mark the SAFER FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS Shop model for VAWG survivors to enable centenary of the first women winning the right Tower Hamlets should feel safe for everyone multiple needs to be met under one roof. We to vote and to drive forward gender equality but we know that many women face will continue to provide the Sanctuary scheme across our city. We will ensure that the role particular challenges feeling safe at home, in to ensure domestic violence victims can stay of East End women is celebrated and further the workplace and in public spaces - 97% of living in their own homes when they wish steps identified to improve gender equality in all known victims of interpersonal violence in and develop ‘safe havens’ for victims to be the borough. Tower Hamlets are women. protected on a short term basis.

In 2016, we launched our Violence Against We will work closely with the Specialist Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy to tackle Domestic Violence Court and family courts to the disproportionate impact of gender-based improve survivor access to justice. oppression and violence on women in our borough and reducing the level and impact of We will publish a VAWG Charter, setting out gender-based violence will continue to be a clearly what women and girls who have been major priority in all of our work. subjected to violence can expect from the Council and others in response, including how We will educate young people in our schools those from different backgrounds or for whom and youth centres about violence against English isn’t their first language will be served. women and girls, consent, and healthy We will provide support through our WorkPath relationships, and ensure that both young men employment service and our Tackling Poverty and women in the borough understand what is scheme specifically targeted at improving the and isn’t appropriate behaviour. economic independence of women to increase their range of life choices. We will convene a We will extend our existing VAWG Champions working group of local employers and others to 18/19 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS PUTTING YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES AT THE HEART OF ALL WE DO

Over the past twenty years, Tower and work to ensure that there is a high quality, Hamlets’ schools have undergone a affordable childcare place for every family that transformation, from being in the bottom needs it, across our diverse range of settings; place of the Ofsted league table to now nursery schools, nursery classes in primary enabling our young people to outperform schools, independent nurseries, child-minders the national average at primary school and nannies, and newer models such as parent- and in GCSE. With schools funding led co-operatives. We will hold an Early Years facing deep cuts from the Conservative Summit, to bring together the expertise of Government, this improvement is at risk. parents, campaigners and childcare providers in We will campaign to protect our schools our borough to discuss the challenges faced in and work to ensure that our young people achieving this ambition and agree priorities for are supported to thrive from early years to reaching it. We will continue to enable families adulthood. with particular needs – such as those supported by social care or whose children have special WE WILL GIVE OUR YOUNG PEOPLE educational needs or disabilities (SEND) – to THE BEST START IN LIFE access specialist childcare, such as the hearing When we took over the Council in 2015, loss support offered at Overland Day Nursery. many of our Children’s Centres were failing to achieve the reach or outcomes that We will seek to make early years childcare in they should have been. We will continue the borough more accessible and affordable by to protect and invest in our network of using our WorkPath employment service to train Children’s Centres to ensure a high quality, new, and upskill existing, childcare workers, universal service is available for all our by using planning powers to secure long-term children from birth, supporting children and affordable space for child care provision and by their carers with additional targeted support providing business support, including help to and outreach to the most vulnerable or those find suitable, affordable premises, to parents, with additional needs. community groups and other providers wanting to start or expand nurseries in the borough. We We will oppose the Conservative under-funding will continue to invest capital funding to expand of under-5s early years education and childcare existing outstanding nurseries and offer more 20/21 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS PUTTING YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES AT THE HEART OF ALL WE DO places, particularly for disadvantaged 2 year Month, co-produced with and led by young are at risk of immediate harm” [Ofsted, Jan By providing additional places, we ended the olds eligible for Government-funded places. people, to raise the profile of the issue and 2018]. We will carry on this improvement in school places crisis we inherited from the promote best practice. children’s social care services for our most previous mayor. We will ensure that every child We will support working families with older vulnerable children and families, implementing can access a good quality school place close to children by working with our schools to increase We will continue to fund the Council’s dedicated the recommendations of Ofsted, and will make home and respond to development pressures the number and affordability of breakfast and child and adolescent mental health team Tower Hamlets one of the best places in the by bringing forward new schools where and after-school clubs, and fund a trial expansion (CAMHS) within children’s social care, providing country to be a social worker, attracting the when needed. The Government has changed of school-based wrap-around care to include mental health support for our most vulnerable very best professionals to keep our young the law so that councils can no longer open school holidays. young people who have experienced neglect, people safe. new schools, and other organisations can open abuse or trauma. And we will campaign for schools even in places where there are already We will protect and strengthen our excellent the Government to increase funding for the We will strengthen our support for young sufficient places. We believe that the local support for children with special educational universal NHS CAMHS services to tackle high people leaving care, providing more financial authority is best placed to deliver additional needs and disabilities and their families through waiting times. and practical assistance as they become adults, schools, meeting the needs of our whole our Children’s Centres, a range of childcare building on the mayor’s decision to exempt community, and believe in directly maintained provision and in nurseries, mainstream and We will work with young people – for example, care leavers from council tax and to replace the schools, playing a full role in our family of local special schools. through the youth service, the Youth Council university grant scrapped by the Tories. schools and will campaign for a change in the and our Young Mayors team - to co-create law to allow this again. We will commit to a fully We will deliver a new Play Strategy, to increase services that tackle the most pressing issues WITH OUR PARTNERS, WE WILL transparent process for identifying providers the number of play areas in public spaces for them - such as healthy relationships, online DELIVER EXCELLENT EDUCATION, for any new schools, to ensure parents, carers, across the borough, ensuring this includes safety, body image, bullying, racism, sexuality POSITIVE YOUTH ACTIVITIES AND other schools and the local community can inclusive play equipment for children with a and gender identity. SUPPORT INTO ADULTHOOD inform the recommendation the Council makes range of needs. We will design these as far as We will support our schools to maintain to the Department for Education. possible to avoid them being misused for anti- We will work with our partners in the NHS, excellent standards of education, building on social behaviour that causes a disturbance to schools and local business to promote healthy the high Ofsted ratings awarded to many of We will support and celebrate the continued nearby neighbours. lifestyles and aim to significantly reduce our nursery, primary, special and secondary achievements of our young people at GCSE childhood obesity, including by reducing the schools. All our nursery and special schools level and take focussed action to improve both We will provide targeted support to our families amount of sugar in school meals and snacks are rated outstanding, with all our primaries academic and vocational qualifications for our in many ways, including through our Early by 50%. We will continue to invest in universal and the vast majority of our secondaries young people at 16-18, with parity of esteem Intervention and Family Support teams, our free school meals for all primary school children rated good or outstanding. Just three for young people, regardless of whether they WorkPath service, our benefits advice and and will work with partners to explore how to secondaries, including two free schools, are follow an academic or vocational route. We will Tackling Poverty Fund, our housing service, tackle so-called ‘holiday hunger’ when young rated requires improvement. We will work develop and deliver an ambitious new strategy and continuing support to our strong voluntary people aren’t receiving free school meals with schools to ensure that all pupils in to coordinate a much stronger post-16 offer for sector and faith organisations. during school holidays. Tower Hamlets go to a Good or Outstanding all our young people, across the council, schools, school. We will continue to invest in the New City College and businesses. WE WILL KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE AND We’re committed to working with our partners schools-led Tower Hamlets Education HELP THEM LEAD HEALTHY LIVES to identify and protect children and young Partnership, to drive school improvement We will continue to fund the Tower Hamlets We will prioritise child and adolescent mental people at risk of harm, abuse or neglect, and and strengthen our family of local schools Educational Maintenance Allowance to support health and wellbeing and will hold an annual we’ve already achieved “significant and positive working in collaboration, not competition, to young people from disadvantaged families to Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health change” in our services meaning “no children achieve the very best for our young people. stay in education post-16 and campaign for the 22/23 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS PUTTING YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES AT THE HEART OF ALL WE DO national EMA scheme to be restored. of female youth workers. We will continue young people at risk of getting involved in to invest in and strengthen our network of gangs to make positive choices about their We remain concerned about student debt youth centres, listening to what young people future. In order to better support young people caused by tuition fees and the rising cost of want and delivering a range of high quality, in making the right choices we will also train living, and will campaign for changes by the popular activities for boys and girls, available our youth workers so that they have a better Government to reduce its burden. We will work on evenings and weekends across the borough. understanding of youth justice issues and with partners to improve access to bursaries This will include promoting healthy respectful develop an awareness and training programme and other assistance to enable young people relationships, staying safe, including online, and for schools and youth centres. to make choices about higher education and in addressing issues around bullying, racism and vocational training based on what’s right for identity. We will set up an Exploitation Team, drawing on them, not what they can afford. Between expertise across different teams in the council schools and Young WorkPath we will provide Your Labour council introduced the award- and with partners to tackle issues such as gangs, expert career advice and mentoring to better winning Idea Stores and they continue to youth violence and child sexual exploitation, support young people to make informed provide spaces for learning and leisure for ensuring a more co-ordinated approach to these choices about their futures. our young people and adults, including daily issues. We will work with the police to ensure sessions for under 5s. We are proud that, that they play their role in undertaking disruption Proposals drawn up by the Conservative unlike many other councils who have had to activity and targeting perpetrators. Government could result in Tower Hamlets close libraries as a result of Conservative cuts, schools losing over £33m under the so called we have not shut a single Idea Store. We will We will expand the reach of our Rapid ‘National Funding Formula’. This translates into reverse the previous independent mayor’s Response service so that it engages with cuts of up to £905 per pupil equivalent to the deep cut to the book-buying budget of our Idea young people over the age of 18 to 24, where loss of 891 Tower Hamlets teachers. Overall Stores so that we can ensure they are able to there is currently a gap in coverage. real terms spending on schools in England by update and replenish their shelves. the end of the decade will have been cut by nearly five per cent, according to the Institute We will aspire to becoming a borough where for Fiscal Studies. We will continue to campaign every young person is in education, training with schools, trade unions, our MPs and parents or employment, by launching Young WorkPath against Government education cuts which to extend our flagship employment service to will be devastating for Tower Hamlets and young people, offering the highest quality higher undermine years of educational progress. education and careers advice, vocational training and a network of mentoring, work experience Tower Hamlets has the second biggest youth and paid internships, including tailored options service in London and now delivers high quality for care leavers and young people with special youth work six days a week from a network of educational needs or disabilities. youth hubs in every part of our borough. We will extend this provision to include 11 year-olds We will work with young adults who have and improve the offer for girls, who previously previously been involved in youth justice, have been poorly served by youth services gangs or other criminal activity to develop here, including by increasing the proportion a network of peer support to help prevent 24/25 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS TACKLING THE HOUSING CRISIS

The shortage of housing in Tower Hamlets to secure another 4,000 homes for social leaves too many of our residents living in rent, either by housing associations building sub-standard, expensive and over-crowded their own homes or through compelling accommodation. The cost of buying and developers to build social homes as part of their even renting a home here outstrips the developments. wages of many ordinary people. And developers too often want to deliver We will continue to reject the Government’s dense, poorly designed housing that so-called affordable rents for social housing as damages communities and puts strain on they are not affordable for local people, and local infrastructure. Tackling the housing all new lettings – of both council and housing crisis is a major priority for the Labour association homes - will either be at Social Rent Party nationally and in Tower Hamlets. or Tower Hamlets Living Rent, saving tenants up to £6,000 a year. WE WILL INCREASE THE NUMBER AND AFFORDABILITY OF HOMES We remain committed to seeing East London’s FOR LOCAL PEOPLE housing estates regenerated, where it makes At the last election, we pledged to deliver sense and where residents consent to change, 1,000 new council homes, owned and let but where this happens it must benefit existing by the Council on secure tenancies – these residents and those on the housing waiting are now either built, under construction list as well. We will ensure that future estate or waiting for planning permission. In the regeneration schemes – whether by the Council next four years, we will start the delivery or other landlords – always result in an increase of an additional 1,000 new council homes in affordable housing for rent, properly respect on top of these. We will campaign for the the need for open space, and are not driven Government to properly fund councils to through without proper consent. On our own build new council homes, including by lifting schemes this consent will be sought by way the ban on borrowing to build, so that we can of a resident ballot. It is only fair that residents meet the needs of our community. who endure building works on their estates get a chance of living in the new homes that are We will work with other housing providers built, and that the environment is liveable. We 26/27 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS TACKLING THE HOUSING CRISIS will develop a Local Lettings Plan, so that local for people to live in, and can cause problems Scheme to cover all of the Houses in Multiple Bed and Breakfast accommodation for longer people get preference for new homes in estate of noise and nuisance to neighbours. In 2015, Occupation (HMOs) being privately rented than six weeks. regeneration schemes. 3% of homes in Tower Hamlets had the whole in the borough, and not just those larger property let out through Air BnB, of which 25% properties covered by the Government’s limited The Government’s changes to the Local We will continue to use our planning powers to was for more than 90 days. Whilst we support mandatory scheme. Housing Allowance have dramatically reduced raise the standard of social housing provided by the ability of residents to occasionally let their the number of privately owned properties private developers through S106 agreements. homes when they are not using them (such as We will campaign for a rent cap across London, within the borough available to the Council during holidays), a home should not be a short- so that the price of renting your home cannot to house homeless families on the housing We will support self-build schemes with let business and we will use planning powers increase by an unreasonable amount each year. waiting list. We have started a programme of residents who want to be able to build their to prevent homes being let out for long periods buying back former Council homes which had own home, supporting up to 50 self-build or exclusively as short-term lets and prosecute We will support residents to set up Tenants and been lost through Right to Buy, so that we homes over the next four years. landlords who break the rules. Residents Associations on our estates where can use them to house homeless families in there isn’t currently one. temporary accommodation within the borough. Larger family homes are in short supply in Because of this Government’s changes to We will continue our Council house buy-back Tower Hamlets and many families find they housing and benefits policy, rough sleeping We will increase the monitoring of the programme to increase the number of homeless have to move out of the borough as their and street homelessness are rising fast. At the performance of housing associations and use all families housed within the borough. families grow. In response to requests from annual street count in 2016, 21 rough sleepers legal means available to ensure that those that residents, we have changed planning rules to were found on the streets of Tower Hamlets – had estates transferred to them under the stock To keep improving the quality of the Council’s allow the building of mansard roof extensions double last year’s total and the highest number transfer process stick to the original transfer own housing, we will introduce the Better on residential properties in two Conservation for many years. We will continue to participate promises. In general, we oppose the merger Neighbourhoods programme. This will invest Areas. Subject to this change not causing in the No First Night Out project, which aims to of housing associations that moves them £150million in maintaining Decent Homes undue and unexpected negative impacts in reduce rough sleeping in the borough to zero. away from locally-based, locally-accountable standards, increased fire safety works, external these areas, we will consult on extending the organisations and will campaign against this block decoration, additional lift replacements, policy of allowing mansard roof extensions WE WILL IMPROVE THE QUALITY where it’s not in residents’ interests. We will new door entry systems in blocks where to other Conservation Areas where there is AND FAIRNESS OF HOUSING campaign for the Government to return powers there is anti-social behaviour and upgrades to demand from residents. Whether renting privately or from a social to the Homes and Communities Agency communal heating systems. landlord, tenants should expect to be treated to regulate the performance of housing London’s first Community Land Trust was in fairly and to live in decent, warm, safe homes. associations and to give the right of return to Following Grenfell we are already investing Tower Hamlets, on the former St Clements stock transfer tenants, where a majority of £13million across our housing to ensure that all site, delivering genuinely and permanently We have introduced a Landlord Licensing tenants wish to do so. works identified by Fire Risk Assessments are affordable homes, and the Mayor of London has Scheme and the Private Tenants Charter to help completed quickly. While we are waiting to see released land for another CLT in Shadwell. We protect tenants in the Private Rental Sector. We When we took over running the Council from the final recommendations from Grenfell, we will work with CLTs to identify at least one more will create a Private Rental Enforcement Unit, the previous mayor, 170 homeless families had support the principle that, subject to detailed suitable site for further CLT development. with an increased number of Environmental unlawfully been housed in Bed and Breakfast advice and consultation, blocks over ten storeys Health and Trading Standards officers, to accommodation from greater than six weeks, should have sprinkler systems. We could never Many residents tell us that homes in their investigate complaints against private landlords, often without any access to private bathrooms fund this from existing budgets – we will areas have become permanent short-term and we will always prosecute where necessary. or cooking facilities. This was a disgrace and campaign with residents to get the Government lets, through services such as Air BnB. This we have reduced this figure to zero. We will to fund the installation of sprinkler systems in reduces the number of homes available locally We will introduce a new Landlord Licensing continue to ensure that no family is housed in blocks over ten storeys. 28/29 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS TACKLING THE HOUSING CRISIS

We introduced the New Deal for Tower Hamlets that some change will bring benefits to our by developers to justify their level of affordable schools and transport links. We will ensure Homes leaseholders, increasing repayment residents, whilst resisting damaging change housing, so that local people and others can that where possible developers have to pay terms for Major Works bills from three to nine and setting out the rules developers must scrutinise it. for infrastructure at the beginning of their years, giving all leaseholders an online MyTHH follow, is an important part of our task. developments, so that infrastructure will be account to access service charge accounts and In the past, Tower Hamlets was expected to funded and built at the same time as housing. real time repairs data, and giving leaseholders We recognise that some parts of the borough solve too much of London’s housing crisis, access to our contractors for minor works to feel ‘under siege’ from development, and that with disproportionate housing targets for our The Council – democratically elected and their properties. We will continue to improve there is widespread cynicism that development borough and much smaller targets for other accountable – is best able to understand and the treatment of THH leaseholders and will of expensive apartments is ‘not for us’, even boroughs. We have worked with the Mayor of represent the needs of our community from campaign to persuade other housing providers where some is ‘affordable’. Our new Local London to reduce the overall number of homes new development. We will campaign to have the in the borough to do the same, including by Plan attempts to address this, supporting that will be built in Tower Hamlets, so that we London Legacy Development Corporation wound adopting our new deal for their leaseholders. growth that meets local needs, including the strike a fairer balance of development across up and our planning powers on Fish Island and needs of London’s economy, but opposing London, whilst still providing new homes for the Lea Valley returned to the Council. We will review the operation of the Tower development that damages our borough, by local people. Hamlets Homes and the benefits and costs of being unsympathetic to its neighbours or too Tower Hamlets is a place of many retaining it as a separate body or bringing the dense or tall for its setting. New homes built in Tower Hamlets should be neighbourhoods, and we will support management back into the Council. Any change available to live in for local people, and not the identity and quality of life of our will require the agreement of tenants and Tower Hamlets is mostly a ‘low-rise’ borough, advertised only to overseas buyers or kept neighbourhoods. We support Neighbourhood leaseholders. and residents tell us that in most places sitting empty whilst their value rises. We will Planning Forums, where there is demand they like that. We will oppose tall buildings use our planning powers to ensure that homes for them. They should be vibrant, open and MAKING DEVELOPMENT WORK other than in areas where they are already that are built here must be advertised solely in representative forums. FOR LOCAL PEOPLE allowed (essentially parts of Canary Wharf the UK for the first year and that they must be Whilst the Council and housing associations and the edges of the City of London) and we in residential use and occupied. will continue to build new housing in our will oppose ‘clustering’, where a single tall borough, most development will still be building is used to justify similar neighbours. We are opposed to the practice of land-banking, delivered by private developers, who have Where there are clusters of tall buildings, where developers buy land and fail to develop the funding to build much-needed housing their heights should fall to the existing level it, sometimes for many years, leaving the land for rent and sale. in adjoining areas, and they should not be derelict and preventing the building of much- used as a precedent for a never-ending series needed housing. This needs a national solution But if developers want to operate in our of neighbours of the same height, as many and we will campaign for a change in the law to borough, they must play fair, abiding by the developers appear to desire on the Isle of Dogs. stop land-banking. In the meantime, we will use rules that we set to ensure that development We will continue to strongly oppose buildings the full planning powers available to us to limit meets the needs of local people. that are too tall and too dense. the practice.

It is likely that Tower Hamlets will continue We will expect developers to meet our targets We have been successful at securing large to face strong development pressure and for 35% of all new developments to be for sums of money for new infrastructure from population growth over the next four years. social rent and 50% overall affordable and will developers but too often the delivery of Our area is going through an unprecedented adopt tougher standards of assessment. We infrastructure lags behind the new housing, change and how we respond to this, accepting will publish the financial information provided putting pressure on existing GP surgeries, 30/31 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS REDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH

One of the most transformational things residents by, leaving them living in poverty that the Council can do is to help lift alongside enormous wealth. our residents out of poverty. Our work on improving educational attainment Today we have the chance to do what has and supporting local people into work never been achieved before, fusing the benefits whole families, and our broader economic prospects of all of our residents with community, and we have hugely increased the huge economic opportunity happening the resources we invest in this. But many on their doorsteps. Our employment rate – of our residents are slipping deeper into fuelled by the extraordinary transformation poverty as a result of the Government’s of our schools - is now the highest it has ever ideological welfare reforms, which target been and is approaching the London average, unfair austerity cuts on the neediest in enormous progress when we lagged 15 points our society. These cuts compound the behind not so long ago. We have one of the inequalities in wealth, health and life highest numbers of new business start-ups in chances that many of our residents already the country here. And we have more jobs than suffer. We will do all we can to protect our we have residents – 1.8 jobs for every adult. But residents from these cuts and to lift them there is much still to do. and their families out of poverty. The conditions are right for us to be able to aim WE WILL BUILD AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS high for our residents and to commit that, in the FOR LOCAL PEOPLE AND WILL HELP long term, we will achieve full employment for DELIVER FULL EMPLOYMENT our residents, with a good-quality, well paid job Tower Hamlets has always sat at the heart for everyone who wants one, and the training, of the UK’s economy. From the time when mentoring and support needed to get it and to the wealth of Empire flowed through the progress once in it. borough’s docks, to today’s wealth of the world’s financial services industry flowing That means targeted work to tackle the through Canary Wharf, there has always entrenched pockets of worklessness that been huge economic activity here. But that persist in our borough, particularly amongst opportunity has passed too many of our Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) women, the 32/33 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS REDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH over 50s and those with poor mental health; pay and conditions for home care staff working We will work across Tower Hamlets public sector We will encourage the cultural economy, to address the under- and unemployment of with vulnerable children and adults. providers to make more contracts available to including crafts and design but also the too many of our residents, including graduates; locally-owned and -run small businesses, social development of arts and entertainment venues and to ensure that we support our least skilled We will now become a Living Wage Landlord, enterprises and co-operatives, and we will both as employers and for their role in place in-work residents to upskill and progress into requiring all businesses signing a new tenancy continue our successful Supply Now training to making. We will more broadly promote better better paid, more rewarding work. agreement with the Council on commercial help them bid for these contracts. development of our local visitor economy – premises to pay the Living Wage to all of its especially in the West of the borough, where Our flagship WorkPath service will support employees. We will work with UNISON and We will set up a Co-operative Commission, to the major visitor and tourist attractions of 5,000 local people into work, with specific others to extend the principles underpinning explore how to expand the co-operative sector the Whitechapel Gallery, Brick Lane, Petticoat programmes to address the needs of Black the Ethical Care Charter to the other often zero in Tower Hamlets. Lane, Spitalfields, and Columbia Road can be Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) women, care- hours and low-paid caring services, such as at better connected and developed into a cultural leavers, those with poor mental health, the over nursing and residential homes, and in child care, Access to fair finance is important for both quarter, better drawing the large number of 50s, those with low skills, and graduates. in Tower Hamlets. This is the right thing to do local residents and small businesses. We will tourists from the Tower of London who often but it is a massive financial undertaking, which continue to support the Tower Hamlets Credit do not venture further into the borough. The mayor’s Apprenticeship Commitment we can make some progress with but cannot Union and we will support other initiatives to will support businesses to create 1,000 new achieve alone. increase access to fair finance for local people, We will address the poor digital connectivity in apprenticeships for local people. including the unbanked and under-banked, and parts of the borough, including through rolling We will campaign to persuade locally-based the small businesses they run. out free wifi in our town centres, working Poor functional skills are a major barrier to businesses – large and small – to adopt fair with the Mayor of London to increase access work and Conservative cuts have reduced the working practices, recognising trade unions, We will support those clusters of growth to fibre across the borough and identifying availability of English as a Second Language paying the Living Wage, signing up to the industries that will provide routes into work for rooftop sites for additional broadband capacity. (ESOL) classes. We will invest in additional Fair Tax Mark and adopting flexible working our growing number of higher skilled residents, Alongside this, we will address the digital ESOL and basic skills training, including running practices that allow all of our residents to work. including cultural industries and technology, exclusion of some of our residents, supporting vocational ESOL training in specific sectors, such We will campaign for Councils to be allowed to and will support the development of a Life them to improve their digital skills. as construction and catering. We will invest in enforce the National Minimum Wage. Sciences cluster around the new Queen Mary our Lifelong Learning Service to ensure that Life Sciences campus in Whitechapel. WE WILL TACKLE POVERTY all of our residents have access to learning for We will continue to support, through grant AND ITS IMPACTS both work and pleasure, continuing to provide funding and commissioning, and partnership Our existing retail businesses and street Our new £5million Tackling Poverty Fund learning free to many based on their income. with others, a strong network of support, advice, markets are a vital part of an economically will continue to protect those residents training and community capacity building successful borough and we will continue our struggling to make ends meet and provide We will proactively try to shape our local projects, centres and initiatives. These both programme of investment in high streets and more support for schemes to help residents economy, adopting a Community Wealth help people in poverty, reducing social exclusion markets, including through our Retail and out of poverty and into employment. Building approach so that wealth is fixed within while also providing ladders and opportunities. Marketing Ready training programmes and shop This Fund includes £3million to protect in our community, rather than passing over it or front restoration grants, and will explore the vulnerable residents from homelessness leaching out of it. Tower Hamlets is already a We will continue our successful support introduction of a Tower Hamlets Pound. We will and the impacts of the Government’s Living Wage borough, with the Council paying programme for our SMEs and start-ups across support the retention and further provision of Welfare Reform agenda, covering both the Living Wage to its employees and requiring the borough and will ensure that the programme SME workspace, including developing models rent payments and other costs, as well as contractors to do the same, and signing up to includes support for those residents wanting to for affordable start-up space, and for more £1million to assist residents affected by the Ethical Care Charter, which has improved create or grow social enterprises or co-operatives. affordable rents for existing businesses. Universal Credit. 34/35 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS REDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH

The transition to Universal Credit is already government’s implementation of Universal make sanitary products available to any woman WE WILL PROMOTE GOOD HEALTH hurting many of our residents, a problem Credit, the self-employed and those with non- who is unable to afford them. AND HEALTHY LIVES AND REDUCE compounded by the cuts to the level of dependant children. THE HEALTH IMPACTS OF POVERTY Universal Credit. We will campaign against the Too many of our residents have to choose Everyone in Tower Hamlets needs an cuts, sanctions and other punishing regulations We will consider how to adopt the good practice between heating and eating, and we will excellent health service, and the opportunity of Universal Credit, which is causing massive rules promoted by campaigning groups, such continue our programme to insulate homes to live a fit and healthy life. We will champion harm to many low income families. Our Tackling as CPAG and Citizens Advice, for ethical debt and update boilers to reduce fuel poverty. But the best possible healthcare for everyone, Poverty Fund includes £1million to assist collection and the appropriate and exceptional rising energy costs and unfair practices by some working with the local NHS and our excellent residents affected by Universal Credit, and we use of bailiffs for council tax or other debts energy companies contribute to the problem and committed providers. Not only is this will also invest a further £1million in expert and we will explore setting up a publicly owned, right but maintaining good health and technical benefits advice for those residents It is a national shame that millions of people municipal energy company – as has been supporting healthy lifestyles is the key to moving to Universal Credit, half of which will go across the UK now rely on food banks to feed successfully done in Bristol and Nottingham meeting the challenge of rising health costs. to voluntary benefits advices services working themselves and their families, a direct result – to offer residents a trusted, cheaper local These needs apply to everyone, from the across our community. of Conservative austerity. The London Food alternative for buying their electricity and gas. youngest to the oldest, the wealthiest to the Board named Tower Hamlets as one of the poorest. Yet they are inevitably focused more Our Council Tax Reduction Scheme is one of the best boroughs in London for tackling food As a result of Conservative austerity, deep cuts on those with, and are a key contributor to, most generous in the country with seven out poverty, rating us fourth out of 33 boroughs for to welfare and funding reductions in public longer term health problems, compounded of ten households who apply getting a 100% helping the most vulnerable access food. We services, child poverty has risen by 10% in Tower by poverty and economic or social exclusion. reduction in their council tax bill. Those who will continue to work with partners across the Hamlets. We are committed to reducing child experience hardship as a result of their council borough to reduce food poverty and to develop poverty, both through the election of a Labour A man born in Tower Hamlets will on average tax bill, such as some self-employed claimants, a food poverty action plan. Government that will reverse austerity, and by have a life expectancy five years shorter than will continue to be able to get support including local action to tackle its causes. We will set up one born in Kensington and Chelsea. Even from the Tackling Poverty Fund. We will review Many girls and women in Tower Hamlets an independent Child Poverty Commission to worse, a man born in Tower Hamlets will on the impact of the Council Tax Reduction experience period poverty, struggling to afford examine what the Council, local partners, the average live in good health for over 15 years Scheme and the support we provide to those expensive sanitary products. We will work with GLA and Government should do to reduce the shorter than one born in Richmond. A similar in most need including those affected by the food banks and others to explore how we can shocking levels of child poverty in our borough. gap exists for women. This difference is down

BREXIT with local employers to identify potential to make their valuable contribution to our through the registration process. We are concerned about the serious skills shortages as a result of Brexit and to community. In particular, we will campaign economic and social impacts that Brexit put in place schemes to meet these shortages for the UK government to retain the voting As a Party we believe that the huge cross- could have on our borough and its residents. where possible. rights in local elections of EU citizens under border challenges of the world today – climate the EU/UK withdrawal agreement; will ensure change, extremism and terrorism, economic We have established a cross-party commission Our borough’s greatest strength is the diversity our passport return and nationality checking turmoil, mass migration – are best dealt with to examine the impacts that Brexit will of our population and that includes many services are adequately funded, so EU in partnership with our global allies. We will have on the Council, our local economy and residents from across the EU. Like the Mayor of citizens are supported to apply for permanent campaign for a referendum on the final terms our residents, and to ensure that we can London, we want to see their futures in the UK residence and citizenship; and will work with of any Brexit deal, so that local people are take action to minimise these impacts. Our protected, with secure residency, employment the community and partners to establish Tower able to express their view on the future of WorkPath employment service is working and social rights, so that they can continue Hamlets EU citizens group to support people this country. 36/37 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS REDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH to poverty, the biggest factor in determining We have increased the number of local One in four of us will experience some form of will fund an increase in the number of free how healthy a person’s life will be here and how people able to access sexual health services poor mental health during our lives and we are outdoor gyms for our residents, improve long they will live. in community settings and now have the committed to working with the NHS to improve sports facilities – including tennis courts, lowest level of late HIV diagnosis in London. access to treatment and support services. We multi-use games areas and astro-turf pitches Poor health in our borough reduces the ability We will improve access to STI screening and have recently published our Suicide Prevention – in parks across the borough and refurbish of our residents to achieve their full potential contraception services further through the Strategy to reduce suicide in the borough all of our leisure centres that need it, funding and imposes huge costs on the public purse. introduction of an improved sexual health and we will refresh and relaunch our Mental extensions and improvements to gyms and service across the borough, enabling residents Health Strategy, working with partners and our swimming pools. Protecting and expanding our GP surgeries is to access services in more community venues. community to ensure we continue to improve essential to reducing our health inequalities. We the lives and life chances of our residents We will support the rich network of sports clubs campaigned successfully with our community More schools in Tower Hamlets have achieved with mental health problems. We will continue in Tower Hamlets and particularly those that to protect surgeries from closure as a result of Healthy School Awards than in any other to support the Time To Change campaign, to develop talent and reach out and welcome Government funding cuts and will do so again London borough, with 93% of schools having address the stigma and discrimination related participation and ensure inclusion. While if the threat returns. With a growing population, an award – we will support more schools to to mental health, and will support the Thrive recognising the limitations, we will look for and some of the most complex health needs achieve the award and to progress to higher London campaign, including by exploring opportunities to increase the range of sports in the country, we need more and better GP levels. We are proud to have the most schools establishing a Tower Hamlets Thrive Hub to venues and facilities in the borough, either surgeries, not fewer, and we have invested of any London borough signed up for the ‘Daily address local needs. Both employment and through improvement of existing venues or almost £4million into new, expanded and Mile’ physical activity scheme and will continue housing can be severely affected by episodes as a part of development. We will explore refurbished surgeries at six sites across the to support even more schools to take part, as of poor mental health and we will make reintroducing a lido in the borough. borough. We will invest a further £13million to part of our goal to tackle childhood obesity. improving access to work and housing a priority, meet the needs of our growing population and including by working with employers, the NHS WE WILL SUPPORT OLDER PEOPLE TO ensure that local people can access GP services We will continue to fund free school meals for all and through our WorkPath service to improve ENJOY FULL AND INDEPENDENT LIVES in modern, fit-for-purpose premises at a further primary school children in the borough’s schools. the number of residents with poor mental The number of older people in the borough 11 sites. health supported to enter and stay in work, is growing. Our older residents tell us that Our smoking cessation programmes have helped and by developing supported housing options. they want to stay independent for as long Despite major Conservative cuts to the thousands of residents to quit smoking, with the We will give mental health service users the as possible, and that having access to Public Health budget we continue to achieve proportion having fallen from 23% in 2014 to opportunity to lead their own services through information about what is going on in the significant improvements in health locally, for 18% in 2016 – a huge reduction. We will continue user led grants to fund activities which focus on area, as well as the right housing and good example, reducing teenage pregnancy by 60%, to fund innovative smoking cessation support to recovery and mental wellbeing support options are essential to this. supporting over 3,000 new mothers to start reduce this number further, particularly among breastfeeding, providing oral health screening groups with higher levels of smoking such as WE WILL PROMOTE AND INVEST We will continue to fund the innovative LinkAge and fluoridation to over 5,000 3-6 year olds in people with mental health problems. IN SPORTS AND RECREATION Plus scheme, delivered by voluntary sector schools, and helping over 1,200 obese residents Keeping physically active plays an important partners across the borough and offering free to lose weight. Unlike many other areas, we have Loneliness affects many residents here, role in the health of our residents, and outreach, support and activities for residents continued to fund non-statutory services as far especially the elderly. We support the work of everyone should be able to use high quality over 50. as possible, such as our excellent universal baby the Loneliness Commission set up by Tower leisure and exercise facilities wherever feeding service, living with HIV support services Hamlets resident Jo Cox MP and will lead a they live, and whatever their income. With Services for older people are quite naturally and our health support for families offered taskforce to identify how we can best address the community and our network of sports focused on the areas where support is needed. through our 12 Children’s Centres. loneliness and isolation here. club, we will develop a Sports Strategy. We But for most older people for most of the time 38/39 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS REDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH

what additional safeguards can be put in place cohesion will be a key outcome in our voluntary to ensure that only those who can afford to are sector funding and other relationships. asked to contribute. The huge pace of change across London can WE WILL WORK WITH RESIDENTS make existing residents feel that their area TO BUILD ONE COMMUNITY is no longer for them. To address this, we will Tower Hamlets has for centuries been a place pilot funding cohesion projects from S106 where generations of immigrants to the UK contributions from developers in areas of have started to build their new lives. Today intense development. the diversity of our population continues to be one of our biggest strengths. A record Street parties, festivals and events like the Big 92% of residents say that Tower Hamlets Lunch or the Jo Cox Great Get Together can is a place where people from different bring neighbours together for the first time - backgrounds get on well together. we will explore waiving street closure and other administrative charges where residents want life should be enjoyable and healthy and we We will ensure that people can live well Yet people also tell us that whilst they live well to organise these. We will continue to host the want this to be maximised, and for our older with dementia by increasing the number of alongside their neighbours, they often feel Boishaki Mela to celebrate the Bangladeshi residents to enjoy and be fulfilled in their lives. ‘Dementia Friends’ and making Tower Hamlets a like they live parallel lives, rarely having real culture of our borough. We will ensure there is a good quality network dementia friendly borough. engagement with people who are different of support where this is needed but we will to them. For a borough like ours to work, we Tower Hamlets is a place of vibrant heritage also focus on helping to provide a positive and Our carers provide a huge public service in the have to continually work at having a culture of and culture. Our bid to be London’s Borough nourishing life for our elders. The mayor will work they do in caring daily for loved ones. We mutual respect and active engagement, where of Culture underlined the diversity of cultural appoint an Older Person’s Champion within the created the Carer’s Dignity Charter to support people look out for one another, and where talent and opportunity we have here and we cabinet, and the Council will support a range their work and we will continue to work with there are real opportunities to understand our will use the bid to work with partners to further of services for older people. We are building the borough’s carers to ensure that their roles differences so that they don’t become barriers. improve our cultural offering. a network of ‘community hubs’, which will be is fully recognised and celebrated, and their run by a range of community providers, and a needs are met, including through a new support We will work with residents to develop a We will continue to work with faith significant part of whose offer will be for elders. service, designed in partnership with carers. Cohesion Strategy that meets this local need communities, and the Inter Faith Forum, We will support the range of voluntary activities and will continue to fund cohesion projects to strengthen links with and between our operating by and for older people to provide We will work with the NHS to ensure that in each area of the borough, addressing local different faith communities, and to strengthen social and other support across our communities. health needs are met as early as possible, to issues identified by residents. We will target the great work they do to improve cohesion, enable people to continue living in their own resources to address disadvantage and increase tolerance and understanding, and to provide To enable as many older people to stay living in homes for as long as possible. community capacity where it is lacking. All services, through voluntary and community their own home as possible, we will increase the parts of our community deserve respect and enterprise, in our borough. amount of extra care sheltered housing in the We believe that there should be a universal community organisations seeking support or borough. We will also increase the number of social care service, free at the point of use, funding from the Council will be expected to From the days of Cable Street to the rout of residents who benefit from assistive technology and we will campaign for a national solution to support these principles and, no matter where the BNP, the East End has a proud tradition of (personal alarms, monitors, safety devices) to this national problem. In the meantime, we will based, to include outreach and to pursue coming together to oppose racism and hate. We support them to stay living in their own homes. review adult social care charging to consider cohesion in all of their activities. Community will continue to have a zero tolerance of racism, 40/41 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – OUR COMMITMENTS REDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH BEING ON YOUR SIDE fascism and hate on our streets and will use the the borough to improve service provision and WE WILL RUN THE COUNCIL FOR THE WHOLE OF OUR COMMUNITY, full force of our resources to tackle it wherever representation for LBGTQ residents. ALWAYS AIMING TO DELIVER EXCELLENT SERVICES EFFICIENTLY it occurs. Like all areas of London, Tower Hamlets has lost AND EFFECTIVELY TO MEET LOCAL NEED. WE WILL EXPECT THE The East End has changed, and in particular many of our LGBTQ venues over recent years, HIGHEST STANDARDS OF PROBITY, HONESTY AND TRANSPARENCY is no longer the low rent point of entry for in part because of developers closing venues in IN EVERYTHING THE COUNCIL DOES. many of those arriving in London and the buildings they have bought. We are proud to be UK. We will continue however to ensure that the first borough in the country to have secured Tower Hamlets welcomes our new residents, the future of an LGBTQ venue (on the site of including those fleeing harm or persecution and the Joiners Arms) through planning powers and who need our, and our community’s support. we will continue to work with the community We will review our services to refugees and to safeguard other venues where we can. We those fleeing harm, and support organisations know that the borough does not always feel working to develop community support safe for LGBTQ residents and visitors and we programmes. Newly arrived migrants can be will continue to tackle hate crime by ensuring particularly isolated, so we have set up a New a strong LGBTQ strand in our No Place For Hate Resident and Refugee Forum and will roll out a Work, will continue to fund specialist youth Welcome to Tower Hamlets programme to help provision for young LGBTQ residents and will these new residents play a fuller role in our support our schools to run anti-homophobic borough, reducing barriers between new and bullying programmes, such as the national existing residents. Diversity Role Models campaign.

Tower Hamlets has long been home to We will conduct a thorough review into the many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender accessibility of our services and employment residents, and today LGBTQ people from across opportunities to people who are trans or the world choose to make Tower Hamlets gender non-binary, including considering how When we took over the running of the meeting thousands of residents in his weekly their home. We are proud that this year Tower we can move to gender self-declaration in Council in 2015, after the previous surgery and regular Meet the mayor meetings; Hamlets Council is the only London council to service delivery. mayor was disqualified by the courts, answering questions in Council meetings be in the Stonewall Top 100 LGBT Employers the Council was mired in corruption and (unlike his predecessor) and taking key and that our LGBT Staff Network was Finally, whether it is fear of radicalisation or mismanagement, with key services run by decisions in public. From small but significant commended for its outstanding work, including of sexual grooming, violence or exploitation, Government-appointed commissioners. It moves – like cancelling the previous mayor’s on gender identity. We will continue to ensure vulnerable people in our community need to was failing residents each and every day. chauffeur driven-car on day one and getting that LGBTQ staff are valued by the Council as be safeguarded. Our respect for each other rid of his army of personal advisors – to major an employer and that we proactively work to needs to be underpinned by a respect for a We have made ending the corruption of the work on setting balanced budgets again, make the Council and our contractors a safe diversity of views and perspectives but also previous mayor and his councillors, repairing solving the school places crisis and beginning and supportive environment for our LGBTQ an understanding of the need to look after the council services and putting the Council on to turn around our failing children’s social care, staff. We will continue to fund the East London vulnerable and those at risk of exploitation in the side of all of its residents our central the Council has turned a corner. In March last Out Project (ELOP) to run the Tower Hamlets whatever way. task. John Biggs has made transparency and year, the Government handed the running of all LGBT Forum to engage with LGBTQ residents in accountability the signature of his mayoralty, services back to the Council, saying the Council 42/43 TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 – BEING ON YOUR SIDEREDUCING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY, IMPROVING HEALTH was on the right track to deliver the services the way that services are run so that we that residents deserve. continue to meet the needs of residents with substantially less funding. Unlike many other But progress is not assured and we must councils, we haven’t closed libraries or children’s continue to be vigilant. The mayor, his Cabinet centres and our Council Tax remains the and Labour councillors will continue to be bound seventh lowest in London. by the Transparency Protocol, making decisions in public, increasing opportunities for residents We will continue to protect frontline services to question and challenge politicians and from Government cuts as much as we can, making as much information available publicly always consulting with residents when this is as possible. They will hold regular surgeries for impossible and protecting services for those residents, be available by telephone and emails who are most in need of the Council’s support. and meet the highest standards of probity. We will campaign to force the Government Your Labour mayor will vigorously, but fairly, to reverse its brutal and damaging cuts to ensure all allegations of wrongdoing by those Council budgets, unfairly targeted at some of in public positions of trust are fully investigated. the poorest areas in the country, like Tower Hamlets. We will continue to keep Council Tax We will continue to transform the way the Council as one of the lowest in London, whilst ensuring delivers services to residents, making it easier that it is set at a level that allows us to protect to contact the Council online and in person, the services that our residents rely on. improving the responsiveness of our services, particularly where they are currently slow or over- Our staff are our biggest asset, working with cumbersome, such as in planning, and engaging us to help improve the lives of everyone in our with residents better on key decisions. We borough. Staff, and the unions who represent believe in public services being run by the public them, have worked with us to meet the sector and as outsourced contracts come up for challenge of deep Conservative austerity cuts. renewal we will actively consider whether the The Labour Party was formed to represent service can be provided in-house. Where a service working people and our link with the unions can more effectively be provided in partnership remains one of our biggest strengths. In the with other bodies – such as the voluntary sector - next four years, we will endeavour to improve we want to effectively manage that partnership, further how we work in partnership with our maximising performance, value for money and unions and will continue to invest in staff community benefits. development, so that together we can keep delivering for our residents. The Government has cut our budget by £140million since 2010, and we have lost Finally, we can achieve a lot together but we almost 2,000 staff. Whilst it is impossible to are clear that to help the people of East London meet the scale of these cuts without impacting we need a Labour Government. This election frontline services, we have tried to reshape will be a stepping stone towards that goal. TOWER HAMLETS MANIFESTO 2018 FOR THE MAYOR AND LOCAL ELECTIONS, 3 MAY

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