Barnet Labour is having to make difficult decisions to fix the borough, after the years of Conservative neglect.
We will do it while still delivering on residentsโ priorities like fixing our streets and protecting our libraries, and we will keep our five key Manifesto pledges, which can be found at the bottom of this post.
Barnet has been hit by an unprecedented rise in demand for services we have a legal duty to provide, and spiralling costs caused by external factors outside the council’s control.
The impact is much worse after more than a decade of Tory administrations acting on autopilot, and the Liz Truss budget that set interest rates skyrocketing.
Temporary accommodation costs have shot up with more and more private landlords exiting the market. It has left the council no choice but to pay for eye-wateringly expensive nightly emergency accommodation for homeless families.
These costs bite harder because the Conservatives failed to invest in council housing. Demand for social care has soared, hitting Barnet particularly hard, with our rising older population.
The Barnet Conservatives were asleep at the wheel. They outsourced day to day responsibility for key council services in a multi-million-pound contract to Capita. They adopted an unwieldy old fashioned committee system out of misplaced nostalgia that lacked co-ordination and proper oversight of service delivery. They let slip of the finances.
It is true the council has been hit by a storm caused by a reckless Conservative Government. But it is hitting us harder after the Barnet Conservatives left our defences to rot.
Barnet Labour is working to fix the foundations. Our strong leader and cabinet system means we can grip the situation. We have put in place daily budget panels looking at every line of new spend. After years of Conservative autopilot, Labourโs taken the wheel.
We are investing in 1,000 new council homes, which will bring temporary accommodation costs down in the long term. We are rebuilding our children’s social care estate, so we are less vulnerable to the private social care market fat cats.
It would have been better to make these investments when interest rates were near zero, but the Conservatives squandered that chance.
We will also protect our residents’ priorities. We will retain our ยฃ97 million programme to fix our roads. No libraries will shut. We will protect the CCTV system we have invested in to fix, after it was left two thirds broken by the Conservatives. But we still must find more than ยฃ20 million of savings.
There will be difficult decisions. But with Labour fixing the foundations, we should be able to put our council on a sustainable basis.
We can ensure that Labour responsibility guides the council, after years of Conservative recklessness.
Barnet Labourโs five manifesto pledges are:
– We will keep council tax low – We will protect and enhance green spaces and declare an immediate climate emergency. – We will invest in more CCTV, better lighting and community safety hubs. – We will protect weekly bin collections & bring back the community skips service to tackle fly-tipping. – We will stand up to developers: we need more affordable family homes not tower-block blight.
