A fresh start for Greenwich Our manifesto for the Royal Borough

Local elections

May 2014

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Manifesto 2014

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Manifesto 2014

Foreword

Dear resident,

Greenwich Conservatives are pleased to present our manifesto for 2014, setting

out our priorities for action if we are elected to serve the people of the Royal

Borough.

Our Councillors and candidates have a strong record of standing up for local

people and taking positive action to improve our local communities. We have

worked hard to give a voice to those who find themselves ignored by the Council,

and to offer an alternative to the current administration.

A fresh approach is badly needed. Labour have run Greenwich Council for over

forty years, and have become increasingly arrogant and out of touch. Their

priorities are wrong, and residents in the borough are suffering as a result.

Taxpayers’ money has been wasted on biased propaganda and vanity projects

whilst Council tenants have to put up with damp and mould-infested homes.

Local shops struggling to survive have been hit with a ‘Pavement tax’ and planned

higher parking charges. Many parts of the Borough feel they have been neglected

for too long by a Labour Council that simply doesn’t listen anymore.

It really is time for a change.

These local elections are a vital opportunity for residents of the Royal Borough to

have their say on how the Council is run. The choice is very clear: More of the

same failed Labour approach, or a fresh start with the Conservatives. We hope to

have your support on 22nd May.

Yours sincerely,

Councillor Spencer Drury

Leader of Greenwich Conservatives

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Our key priorities:

Quality education and more choice for parents

Improved local healthcare

Lower parking costs

Real support for small businesses

A better deal on housing

An end to Labour’s waste

A fairer deal for the whole Borough

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Manifesto 2014

A fresh start for Greenwich Our Manifesto for the Royal Borough

Greenwich Conservatives have a track record of delivering

results for residents across the borough. Labour has been in

power locally for many years, but we have provided an

alternative voice and held them to account, exposing their

arrogance and waste.

Electing more Conservatives to the Council will make that

voice even stronger, and provide the change we all need. A

Conservative administration at the Town Hall will make a

positive difference, and the following pages set out our plan

of action.

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Manifesto 2014

Quality Education

For too long, education in Greenwich has not met the expectations of parents,

and has let down their children. Many have to use schools outside the borough

to get the education they want. Labour have denied choice and opposed good

new schools opening in the Borough. We want to give children the best start in

life, and we plan to:

Bring a grammar school to Greenwich by allowing Bexley Grammar to

expand to a new site in this borough.

Support the creation of more free schools and academies to give parents a

choice of good schools.

Set up a new ‘Greenwich Futures Fund’ to widen university access, and

support a new technical college in Eltham.

Create more primary and secondary school places across the borough to

ensure the increasing population is properly supported.

End the policy of placing more temporary classrooms in existing primary

schools.

Improved local Healthcare

Local authorities now have a bigger role in helping shape local health provision,

and we will seek to use these powers to secure improvements. We need to plan

properly for new services to meet the needs of local people, rather than simply

hoping they will appear as the population increases.

We will support the creation of an Urgent Care Centre at the new Eltham

Community Hospital to reduce pressure on Queen Elizabeth A&E

We oppose the closure of the Grabadoc out-of-hours GP service, and

support local GPs’ plans to improve healthcare across the whole borough.

We will ensure new doctors’ surgeries and dentists are included in major

new housing developments as a matter of policy.

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Manifesto 2014

Lower parking costs

Sensible parking policies are necessary to ensure a proper balance between the

needs of residents and different road users. But under Labour, charges for

parking and increases in the cost of residents’ permits have been planned

without proper consideration of the effects. We will:

Halve the cost of residents’ parking permits across the borough.

Cancel Labour’s plan to introduce parking charges on Eltham High Street

and the Old Dover Road shops at the Blackheath Royal Standard.

Transport

Under Labour, the Council leadership have allowed personal vendettas and petty

politics get in the way of achieving a better deal on transport. Their refusal to

work with the Mayor’s cycling adviser put us at a disadvantage in bidding for vital

funds, and risked damaging important relationships with Transport for London

and other partners. They have also failed to consult properly with residents or

conduct necessary research into large infrastructure projects. Conservatives will

work constructively to get the improvements we need.

Support for Cycling: We will encourage more cycling by introducing new

measures to make it safer, including Dutch-style separate cycle lanes, and

aim to develop these across the borough. We support the London Cycle

Campaign’s ‘Space to Cycle’ campaign, and want to see Greenwich

become a truly cycle-friendly borough, taking full advantage of the record

investment in cycling from the Conservative Mayor of London.

Better rail links: We will work with Network Rail and put pressure on train

operating companies to improve services through mainline stations,

especially the Eltham/Kidbrooke line where the new Kidbrooke Village will

lead to increased demand.

Buses: We will work constructively with Transport for London to improve

bus services in the borough, including better links between areas not

currently well served.

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Manifesto 2014

Cutting congestion: We will pursue measures to reduce traffic congestion

in the borough, particularly on the Blackwall Tunnel approach. We support

the option of a new tunnel at Silvertown, if it can be demonstrated this will

reduce congestion and air pollution. We oppose Labour’s proposal for a

bridge at Gallions Reach, and will demand proper transport modelling and

further research before any new river crossings are approved.

Support for small businesses

Small businesses are a vital part of our local economy, and their success sustains

communities and benefits us all. We want to do much more to support them to

recover as the national economy grows. The Labour Council has failed to

understand the needs of business, hitting them with extra charges and failing to

consult them on their disastrous so-called town centre “Masterplans”.

We will end Labour’s ‘Pavement Tax’ on local shops, which was introduced

without proper consultation and has hit businesses with unfair new

charges.

We will create Local Enterprise Zones to support smaller parades of shops,

and scrap business rates for new businesses in their first year in targeted

areas.

We will conduct a full review of Labour’s ‘Masterplans’ to take account of

the needs of small businesses.

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A better deal on housing

Council tenants and leaseholders have been taken for granted by Labour for far

too long. Poor maintenance and disgraceful levels of mould and damp have been

tolerated, whilst residents face increased charges and little accountability for

what they pay. We think people deserve better.

We will improve housing maintenance and make it a priority to get rid of

damp and mould to ensure homes are fit to live in.

We will scrap Labour’s plan for a new £12 million service charge for

Council tenants, saving each household £100 or more each year.

We will put an end to Labour’s overcharging of leaseholders, and ensure

the charges they pay are subject to proper transparency and

accountability.

An end to Labour’s waste

Labour’s spending priorities are wrong, and too much of taxpayers’ money has

been wasted. Mismanagement of major projects has led to millions of pounds of

extra costs, whilst money has been cut from local community groups. Labour

Councillors voted to keep their £100,000-a-year pensions perk for sitting

Councillors, whilst Conservatives voted to abolish it. We would:

Conduct a full review of Council spending to identify waste and

inefficiencies.

End the taxpayer funding of trade unions (£200,000 per year),

Close down Labour’s Greenwich Time propaganda newspaper and scrap

excessive spending on vanity projects.

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Safer and cleaner neighbourhoods

It is a basic job of the Council to ensure the streets of the borough are kept clean

and safe, and people expect no less. Proper street cleaning and working with the

local police to tackle anti-social behaviour can make our communities feel safer

and more friendly. We will:

Continue to support neighbourhood policing for every ward and extra

officers for the Borough.

Prioritise dealing with anti-social behaviour and vandalism.

Protect the weekly bin collection service.

Ensure road sweepers follow the refuse collectors around the borough.

Put the Council’s street-cleaning contract up for tender and end the

heavily-subsidised dominance of the Cleansweep service.

A fairer deal for the whole borough

A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for a fairer deal across the borough. Many

areas feel they have been neglected in favour of others. Meanwhile, the Council

has become more out of touch and arrogant, with decisions taken by a handful of

Labour politicians without proper scrutiny. The culture of politics in the Royal

Borough needs to change. We will:

Create area committees with specific responsibility for budgets and

actions in their areas. This will make Councillors much more responsible

for improvements in their local communities.

End the bias towards some parts of the Borough at the expense of others,

by introducing a fairer spending policy.

Fully review the Council’s constitution, with input from local residents, to

open up and improve local democracy.

These are just some of the changes a Conservative

administration would bring to

The Royal Borough of Greenwich.

It’s time for change

Vote Conservative on 22nd May 2014

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Printed and promoted by Matt Hartley on behalf of Greenwich Conservatives, both of 74 Westmount Road, Eltham SE9 1JE.