VOTE GREEN FOR ACCOUNTABILITY, SCRUTINY, ENHANCED DEMOCRACY AND FRESH IDEAS
EFFECTIVE OPPOSITION
The people of Brent need an effective opposition on Brent
Council. An opposition that will hold the Labour Council to account, scrutinise
its actions and put forward bold and imaginative policies that will improve the
lives of ordinary people in the borough.
Effective opposition can only be provided by electing
Green Party councillors.
For most of the current Council the Tories have been
divided into two warring groups, often more concerned to scrabble for the
available allowances than to represent their constituents and carry out the
meticulous scrutiny that is the job on an opposition. The lone Liberal Democrat
councillor jumped ship to become an independent reflecting the weakness of the
party and its lack of leadership. It is now a spent force.
This has enabled the Labour Party to run Brent with an
often breath taking arrogance, ignoring representations made by local people
with a leader keen to extend his power at the expense of his own backbenchers.
LABOUR’S FAILURE TO CHALLENGE AUSTERITY
Although rightly blaming the Conservative government for
its austerity cuts to local government funding it has failed to mount any sort
of challenge to that agenda. Instead it has not only implemented cuts in
borough services, often making woeful choices, but reacted only belatedly to
the wider impact of government cuts such as the closure of the Accident and
Emergency Ward at Central Middlesex Hospital, closure of police stations, cuts
in neighbourhood policing, the closure of Job Centres and the academisation of
our schools.
Brent Greens through the blog Wembley Matters has sought
to draw public attention to these issues, carrying out our own scrutiny of
decisions, and backing the community groups that fight to retain our services
and campaign on planning and environment issues to preserve our quality of
life.
WIDENING PARTICIPATION IN OUR DEMOCRACY
Greens
are committed to widening democracy through greater participation. At present
although the Council directly and indirectly has control of many meeting
spaces, charges for hire are exorbitant.
We want meeting places that are open to all and affordable for community
groups to hire. Such facilities help overcome isolation of individuals and
promote social cohesion. This is
particularly important in a period of privatisation of public and social
spaces.
We
will call on other parties to work with us to set up a cross party commission
to examine ways of involving ALL councillors actively in decision making rather
than the present system where an 8 person Cabinet make all major decisions.
Apart from being undemocratic this is a waste of the expertise and energy of backbench
councillors who have much to contribute.
END LABOUR COLLUSION IN THE MISUSE OF THE
TERM ‘AFFORDABLE’ REGARDING HOUSING
One of the most dishonest aspects of Brent Labour is the
pretence that the housing being built by Quintain at Wembley, and other
developers elsewhere in the borough, is affordable. The word affordable becomes
meaningless when it describes housing sold or rented at 80% of market
rates. Given the low median income of
Brent families this is nowhere near affordable and to call it such is an
insult. Indeed the Quintain development
has made no dent in the number of needy families on the Council Housing waiting
list.
GREENS WILL CAMPAIGN FOR GENUINELY AFFORDABLE SOCIAL HOUSING
Green councillors will actively campaign for genuinely affordable
social housing to be built as part of regeneration and not allow developers to
wriggle out of Brent and GLA guidelines on this and other aspects of
development including the height of buildings and regulations on light and
proximity to other buildings.
END POLITICAL INTERFERENCE WITH PLANNING
It is vital that the Brent Planning Committee be freed
from political interference. It has an independent quasi-judicial role that
must be retained with a Chair who has the confidence of all parties on the
Council. We will continue to monitor the meetings that the leader of the
Council has with developers and ensure that the new Planning Guidelines,
adopted after our campaigning, are rigorously adhered to. We will not standby
when poor decisions are made, such as spending 18m on new steps for Wembley Stadium,
using the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). Rather than go back to developers
it should have been spent on repairing the borough’s deteriorating roads and
pavements. CIL should be used to improve the whole of Brent – not just Wembley.
We will ensure that the Neighbourhood CIL is spent fairly on projects that have
wide community support.
PROTECT WEMBLEY RESIDENTS FROM DETRIMENTAL IMPACT OF STADIUM EVENTS
Resident of Wembley Park and Wembley Central opposed the
increased in the number of events and increased capacity at Wembley Stadium brought
about by the Spurs occupancy. Their fears have proved to be well grounded and
many residents feel trapped in their own homes on match days. We will oppose
any similar occupancy by Chelsea FC when works take place at their site. Some
Wembley small businesses benefit from events but others suffer a reduction in
business when customers avoid the area.
SUPPORT FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Small businesses are the lifeblood and character of many
areas and Brent’s diversity is reflected in the variety of places to shop and
socialise. However, it can be a daunting experience especially when faced with
competition from large supermarket chains and brands that dominate the high
street. Your Green Party Councillors
would support small businesses, social enterprises and co-operatives because
they create jobs and diversity on our high streets.
We would support making the bidding process for contracts
for services needed by council fair to allow small local businesses the
opportunity to grow and develop. We would support keeping business rates steady
and offer relief to small businesses who are in need of extra support to
succeed and prosper.
We believe in innovation especially eco-friendly business
solutions. Your Green Party Councillors would support offering incentives to
businesses that are environmentally conscious and responsible with their waste
disposal.
Brent has the potential to become the next Tech hub of the
capital. Tech start-ups often require minimal space to get going and we would
support any initiative to offer space at reasonable rates and vital
infrastructure such as improved Internet speed and reliability to these
companies. This would encourage job creation and growth and the vital skills
and experience needed for the next generation of workers to be in employment in
the future.
VALUE FOR MONEY WASTE SERVICES & PROTECTION OF GREEN SPACES AND TREES
Brent Green Party supported John Duffy’s efforts to ensure
that residents were getting value for money from the waste contracts. Our councillors
will push for a review of all Brent waste services. Brent Labour made major
mistakes not only in out-sourcing to Veolia but for making Veolia responsible
for monitoring the services themselves.
Our green spaces
and street trees are one of Brent’s major assets. Mindful of events in
Sheffield we will press for a transparent policy on the maintenance of our
trees to ensure that any tree removal is for genuine reasons and that any trees
removed are replaced. We will protect our open spaces and ensure that
environmentally methods are used to maintain and enhance them. We support moves
to use CIL from the Chesterfield House (‘Twin Towers’) development in Wembley
to improve the facilities in Edward VII Park and we
will push to reopen Gladstone Park pool and use the income generated to employ
park wardens in Gladstone Park
We recognise Abbey Road Recycle centre is inaccessible for many
residents, especially for those without vehicles, so we will seek to scrap the
£35 charge for bulky goods introduced by Labour in August 2017.
ACTION ON IMPROVING AIR QUALITY IN BRENT
We support the action points put forward by Clean Air in
Brent. (1) Most of us have had that cold or chest infection which takes ages to
go away. But what if living in an area with poor air quality can make it harder
to recover? We might not know it, but pollutants add stress to our heart & lungs
that sap our energy. Indeed, 5879 people die early each year due to air
pollution and if you’re an elder, poor or from an ethnic minority, it’s more
likely to be you.
We can’t accept people that people with medical
conditions such as asthma or COPD are unable to leave their home when pollution
is particularly bad. We believe the
Mayor’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) should cover the
whole of London – not just up to the North and South Circular. Greens would:
·
Increase awareness
by installing more monitoring equipment & finding innovative ways of
providing public displays of real-time air pollution date on our streets.
·
Call out policy
that has a flawed evidence base, such as speed bumps that cause a danger by
cars swerving and doubling the emissions of cars that do slow down.
·
Embrace
psychological strategies such as speed signs that ‘flash’ or the placement of
trees, plants & art work which work by narrowing and softening the street,
reducing visibility, which discourages speeding.
·
Expand
electric-car charging network.
·
Ensure new
developments reduce air-pollution.
·
Adapt areas to
create more features, such as children’s play or sitting areas, which send a
message to drivers to be more careful, slow down (reducing air pollution).
·
Install
proper segregated cycle lanes & bring London’s cycle hire scheme to Brent.
Tackle the major blockage to north-south cycle travel at the North
Circular/Neasden Underpass in consultation with Brent Cyclists.
·
Encourage
physical activity through people friendly streets & parks safe from crime.
Some of this requires innovative solutions such as the restoration of the
Gladstone Park Lido using the income generated to introduce Park Wardens.
FIND IMAGINATIVE WAYS TO REINSTATE YOUTH PROVISION
The closure of Stonebridge Adventure Playground and all
Brent youth centres apart from Roundwood has been one of the biggest mistakes
of Brent Labour. We will press for a
Scrutiny Task Force to examine the impact of these closure on young people and
to look at the effectiveness of the little known Young Brent Foundation, a charitable
independent voluntary sector body and umbrella membership organisation
ostensibly set up for the benefit of all youth providers in Brent. We will look for imaginative ways to
reinstate youth provision in Brent in consultation with young people and
providers.
WE WILL OPPOSE ANY FURTHER ACADEMISATION OF SCHOOLS
Greens
supported the campaign against the academisation of The Village School. The
evidence increasingly shows that academisation does not result in standards
higher than local authority schools. They are not democratically accountable
and recent publicity has shown how inflated salaries are paid to academy chain
bosses at the expense of funding for the classroom. We are opposed to the building of an Ark
Primary Free School on the car park of York House, Wembley Hill Road. The latest
pupil figures question the necessity of another primary school when there are
vacancies in other nearby schools. The proposed site is unsuitable. It is on a
cramped site on a busy road and pupils would be exposed to air pollution from
traffic.
AN ETHICAL APPROACH TO BRENT PENSION FUND AND OUT-SOURCING
We
will support the divestment of Brent Council’s Pension Fund from investment in
fossil fuels and push for further measures to contribute to carbon reduction as
the need to combat climate change becomes more urgent.
We
will press for services that are currently out-sourced to be brought back ‘in-house’
where possible and establishment of ethical guidelines for Council procurement.
INCREASE PUBLIC TOILET FACILTIES
A
hidden issue in Brent, but one with unfortunate consequences, is the lack of
public toilets in the borough. The lack of public toilets particularly affects
the elderly, people with young children and the sick. We will press the council
to introduce a scheme in which local shops and eating-places will allow
non-customers to use the facilities for a small charge – perhaps in exchange
for a small reduction in business rates.
RECOGNISE THE COMMITMENT OF LIBRARY CAMPAIGNERS AND FIND WAYS OR
REINSTATING A NEASDEN LIBRARY
Brent
Greens supported groups campaigning to keep libraries open when half were
closed by a previous Labour Council. We support the provision of publicly
funded, professionally staffed libraries, but meanwhile applaud the efforts of
volunteers to keep some of the closed libraries open. We will press for
professional support and peppercorn rents for these initiatives and will look
for ways to provide facilities in places such as Neasden where the library
closed in an under-resourced area and where no volunteer library has replaced
it.
ACCESSIBILITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Greens will pressure Brent
Council to urgently address problems that make
so many of our pavements into an obstacle course for visually and mobility
impaired people caused by such things as uneven paving and
potholing in roads and pavements and A-boards advertising shops etc.
Brent Council should
put pressure on TfL to make sure that
· All bus stops are fully accessible. Buses should be
able to pull in near the kerb, to help Disabled and older people to get on
board.
· Bus drivers should always lower buses when needed,
stop at the stops not some distance from them when there is a queue of buses
· Bus drivers do not pull away before all passengers are
seated or standing securely
· All bus stop bypasses on cycle lanes are safe for
pedestrians to cross.
All pedestrian crossings that are under the control of the council
should be fully accessible, with tactile and/or audio signal; and allow enough
time to cross (which is not currently the case).
The Taxicard discount scheme for disabled people and elders needs to be
better publicised and extended so that it is easier to get a a
‘three-swipe’ discount to cover longer
journeys,
Brent council will lobby TfL, train companies and Government to set out a
funded timetable programme for making stations in the borough fully
accessible.
We support the appointment of a councillor whose focus would be
Disability and Inclusion, including accessible transport within the borough.
We will seek council action to restore the parking ‘scratch card’ system
as many people find the new system and using the Internet a challenge. We will therefore seek to reverse
Labour's decision to increase the costs of NHS Parking Permits (Essential User
Permits, EUP) by 137% on April 3rd. This tax increase is an unfair attack on
the budget of local NHS teams who are often sending their staff out to visit
some of the most vulnerable and isolated members of our population.
We will press the Council in its Public Health role
to support voluntary groups such as Brent Advocacy Concerns that advocate for
disabled people, in securing affordable accommodation to carry out their work.
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