BEXLEYLABOUR BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY, FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW Bexley Labour Manifesto London Borough of Bexley Elections Thursday 3 May 2018 BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 1 Contents 3 An opportunity to grasp 4 The challenges we face 8 Taking action to tackle the housing crisis 10 Protecting our parks & open spaces for a greener Bexley 12 Making the services we all use better 14 Ensuring every child receives the best education 16 Creating a healthier borough 17 Protecting our most vulnerable children 18 Supporting our older and disabled residents 20 A safer and more secure borough 22 Opportunities for all in a growing Bexley 25 Supporting culture and diversity across Bexley 26 Supporting our voluntary sector 27 Assisting our residents to be financially sustainable 28 Building a modern council BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 2 An opportunity to grasp Elections are a choice, but on This year’s election is the Thursday 3 May, Bexley does opportunity to look to our not just have a choice to make future, build a borough where but an opportunity to grasp; our children and future the opportunity to change the generations can afford to stay, direction of our borough. and all of us can be proud of today not obsessed with On 3 May, we all have out-of-date and tired ideas the opportunity to invest that have not worked for years in Bexley and stop the and cannot work tomorrow. decay of recent years. Thursday 3 May is an We all have the opportunity opportunity to build a to create a council that better Bexley that works puts compassion at its and will continue to work core and makes aspiration for the many, not the few. its mission, calling time on the thoughtlessness A new Labour council and cruelty that have for a modern Bexley. marked the last decade. BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 3 The challenges we face Bexley Labour has a plan to their retirement with grown- tackle the real challenges up children forced to stay this borough faces. at home long after they hoped to fly the nest. We are clear on the path we need to take in the next Bexley’s Conservatives four years. It is plain to see have allowed hundred of the problems we have to properties built without overcome, and they are our a single affordable home priority; using the council’s provided. Thousands of powers to address the housing properties to be built but none crisis, protecting parks and are genuinely affordable to open spaces, supporting the hard-working local families police and being tough on and couples. A new Labour crime, safeguarding education council will address the and children and young borough’s housing crisis. people, and keeping the borough tidy all year round. In Blackfen, Erith and Crayford local communities have seen We have identified the their parks and open spaces problems. We stand ready sold off for development to implement the solutions. with the threat recently felt in Barnehurst and Belvedere From Crayford to Welling, and the prospect of even young people are left more being built on across abandoned by a housing the entire borough. market that denies them a foot on the ladder. As one Conservative councillor said, ‘Everyone’s house The Conservative council was a field, to begin with’. refuses to accept there is a A new Labour council will housing crisis let alone offer stop, cancel and reverse the the solutions to solve it. From Tories programme to build Foots Cray to Belvedere on parks and open spaces, parents cannot fully enjoy within days of the election. BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 4 By using brownfield land and Every child deserves the former industrial spaces, best start in life. However, we can build the homes Bexley’s Conservative council and create the jobs we have worked hand in hand need without destroying with their Government Bexley’s much loved green to deliver real terms and open spaces. cuts to local schools. There are two-hundred and This has led to headteachers twenty-five CCTV cameras in and governing bodies Bexley. No one watches them. making the most difficult of decisions regarding support The council has put for our children ranging from money into their purchase redundancies to support staff, and maintenance, but rationing classroom resources inexcusably axed the staff and writing begging letters monitoring them live. to parents asking them to instead provide these funds Whether in Bexley Village, for their child’s education. Northumberland Heath or Sidcup CCTV cameras are When challenged Bexley’s not preventing crime and not Conservatives state these helping our local police but cuts aren’t happening, but instead stare into oblivion, local headteachers, staff catching the odd incident and parents tell a different in retrospect by chance. story. The problems have been exacerbated by the A new Labour council will Conservative’s desire to spend the cash needed to deliver their ideological reinstate live monitoring to mission to academise every support our overstretched school in the borough. police, be tough on crime and take a stand for law and order in the borough. BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 5 This has left our council and knee high is all too frequent communities with less and a sight in our borough. less say over the management of our local schools. We pride ourselves on being While Chief Executives of a green and clean borough academies take home six- but after years of cuts that figure sums, they are at pride is turning to shame. the same time writing to parents begging for money Instead of spending for essential resources. consistently, year-on-year, the Conservative council made These cuts are felt hardest huge cuts and then threw by those children with some cash around when they special educational needs need your vote in an election and disabilities, with a need year. Their policy stores up for more joined up working problems, is short-sighted and with health services and cost more in the long run. more urgency to provide the services they need. A new Labour council will budget consistently and A new Labour council will work maintain highways and to make academy schools pavements year-in and year- more accountable to parents out. It is common sense and and the community, work saves taxpayer cash in the with parents and teachers to long-run. We will keep the fight the Government for an borough neat and tidy all the increase in school funding time, not just at election time. and fight to ensure adequate funding for every Bexley child. Overgrown grass verges next to inch deep potholes and litter lying for months in streets where weeds grow BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 6 THE SOLUTIONS WE OFFER BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 7 Taking action to tackle the housing crisis There is a housing Bexley’s ambitious and crisis in Bexley. forward-looking growth strategy came about after It does not just affect younger years of Labour pressure people who cannot afford for joined-up thinking and to get on the housing ladder an aspirational vision for or find affordable rents; the the future. We believe that housing crisis affects that the growth agenda is the generation’s parents who best means to address the cannot enjoy the fruits of housing crisis in our borough. their hard work with grown- up children living at home. The housing crisis breaks up families with local people forced out of the communities where they grew up. Our communities are being transformed by unscrupulous landlords and developers who rent and sell below par accommodation changing the character of our neighbourhoods. Bexley Labour is clear: things have to change quickly and drastically but Bexley’s Tories, unable and unwilling to help, turn a deaf ear to calls to tackle the crisis. BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 8 A Labour council in Bexley will: • Introduce a Private Renters • Improve temporary Charter to protect renters in accommodation provision Bexley by ensuring they are fully by introducing new purpose- informed of their legal rights built sites in the borough for and take stronger enforcement accommodation for those who against rogue landlords to are waiting to be rehoused. protect tenants. • Work with the Mayor of • Support genuinely affordable London to develop new housing housing because what is termed schemes that make rent as ‘affordable’ too often is and home ownership more unaffordable for hardworking achievable for everyone. local people. • Ensure that the council- • Strengthen planning policies controlled housing development to address the housing crisis, company, Bexley Co. delivers ensuring a tougher approach is 50% affordable housing on all of taken on viability assessments its development sites. to deliver higher proportions of genuinely affordable in • Develop more densely and developments and to ensure efficiently in town centres and developers no longer fail to offer around transport hubs such what we need. as train stations to boost the numbers of homes available. • Use our nomination rights to prioritise local residents • Invest the council’s staff when allocating properties and pension fund into affordable through Bexley Co., the council’s housing, addressing housing housing development company, demand and securing a put Bexley residents at the top of return for the council’s the housing list. much-valued workforce. BUILDING A BETTER BEXLEY 9 Protecting our parks & open spaces for a greener Bexley Bexley has a proud industrial London and Kent: we must heritage. For generations, get that balance right, or we it has been a place where risk becoming a place where people work and make things, developers can cut corners but just as important are the off our greenery and build green spaces and parks that sub-standard developments.