Conservatives launch manifesto for local elections |
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Tories pledge to focus on crime and grime in Ealing Borough
The Borough of Ealing is a great place in which to live and work. But many of Ealing Council’s services are far from great and have been consistently criticised by local residents and national authorities. In November 2004 the Commission for Social Care Inspection awarded our social services department a ‘zero star’ rating – making it officially the worst social services department in London. In December 2004 the Audit Commission officially ranked Ealing Council as a ‘weak’ council. Twelve years of Labour rule at Ealing Town Hall has seen council tax bills soar whilst the quality of services we all rely on have got worse. Under a Conservative run Ealing Council this record will change. We will make immediate and substantial improvements to the quality of life of all Ealing residents. At the heart of our programme is the simple belief that the first priority of any council must be to deliver high quality public services to those it represents. In particular, our programme focuses on the following: • Delivering major improvements in our local environment – cleaner streets, better rubbish collection, new street lighting, tackling fly tipping and graffiti • Working for a safer community - developing a proper partnership with the Police in preventing and tackling crime whilst taking tough action on those who commit anti-social behaviour on our streets. • Pursuing a sensible transport policy to deliver a transport system that properly reflects how we all move around our borough and beyond. • Developing new opportunities for young people and broadening their choices to give them the best start in life. • Providing the highest quality care to the most vulnerable residents in our community whilst enabling them to live full and independent lives. • Keeping council tax as low as possible. Cutting out the massive waste at Ealing Council and delivering true value for money for the council tax already paid by residents. Conservatives want to see Ealing Council benefiting you, your family and friends. Not penalising you through unacceptably high council tax increases and poor local services. This programme represents our commitment to you. It sets out what we want to achieve over the next four years and it is also a means by which you can judge whether we have delivered on these commitments. At the forthcoming local elections, I ask you to help bring about a fresh start for the borough of Ealing by electing Conservative councillors in your local area. Only then can we start to deliver the improvements that we all want and deserve. Cllr Jason Stacey YOUR LOCAL ENVIRONMENT The money Ealing Council spends on our local environment has borne the brunt of Labour’s cuts in services. From dog bins to black sacks, all have been cut by this Labour Council in the name of ‘achieving efficiencies’. Over the past four years we have also seen this Labour Council significantly increase and introduce new charges that we now all have to pay on top of our council tax bills. These include the ‘pink bag’ scheme for collecting garden waste and the charges for picking up old fridges which used to be free. Every day residents tell us that they are fed up with dirty streets, with litter lying everywhere, with street lights not working, with rats and other vermin on our streets, and with our parks being uncared for. The quality of our local environment is one of the most important aspects of what your local council delivers for you. Not only is a poor local environment unpleasant to live in, but it also creates the conditions where crime and anti-social behaviour flourish. The quality of our local environment therefore forms the central part of our manifesto. Conservatives will transform our local environment in just four years. Backed by a significant investment programme, we will ensure that streets are properly cleaned, graffiti and fly tipping is promptly removed, modern street lighting is installed and that our pavements are properly maintained. INVESTING YOUR MONEY IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT Upon taking control of Ealing Council, the Conservatives will immediately move an additional £1.8 million into the environment budget. This money will come by making overspending departments at Ealing Council balance their budgets and by taking wasteful expenditure out of others. The Conservatives are also pledging that in every year’s budget over the four year life of the next council, the environment budget will be increased by a minimum of £1.5 million every year. This will mean that during the next council at least an additional £7.8 million will be invested in making our streets cleaner, in tackling graffiti and fly tipping, for replacing cracked pavements and for generally making the borough of Ealing a better place in which to live and work. ‘SHOWCASE STREETS’ At the centre of our environment policy is our Showcase Streets programme. This This will include: • Upgraded street lighting We believe strongly that our Showcase Streets programme will not only improve our local environment, but will also play a key role in restoring civic and community pride in our local areas. All of these improvements will take place at the same time to give the designated areas a new start. There will be four designated ‘pilot’ areas to begin with. After consultation with local residents, work on the first phase of Showcase Streets will start in the following areas: • Medway Estate, Perivale Once these pilot schemes have been completed we will ask local residents to give us their feedback and, if positive, we will ask all area committees to identify further Showcase Street projects in all areas of the borough. Showcase Streets will take place in addition to, not in place of, other environmental improvement work in the borough. Our ultimate aim is to use the Showcase Streets programme to enable Ealing to become a Showcase Borough and once again enjoy the reputation of being ‘Queen of the Suburbs’. CLEAN STREETS It is often said that people judge the performance of their local council by how clean their streets are. This statement is not surprising as it is something people see from their own front door and considering that for many residents their main interaction with a service provided by the council is through the rubbish collection and street cleaning service. A Conservative run Ealing Council will introduce a number of new elements to the rubbish collection and street sweeping service. Every street in the borough will be allocated a set day and time period every week when the rubbish will be collected and the street will be swept. Every street in the borough will be properly swept at least once a week and the two services will be fully coordinated to ensure that every street is swept immediately following a rubbish collection. Small signs in every road will not only advertise the day and time for these services but will also contain the appropriate contact details to enable problems to be reported immediately. Upon receiving reports of problems, council officers will be required to deal with any complaints within 24 hours. The Conservatives will also introduce a new inspection system to judge whether a street is considered clean or not. We shall not only inspect more streets every week but our standards for ‘passing’ streets as clean will be raised to ensure that our streets really are clean for residents. Where streets consistently fail our inspection tests we will not pay the contractor for the work and this saved money will be passed back to residents as compensation for the poor service. Conservatives in Ealing also believe that the present ‘black sack’ system of rubbish collection is outdated and causes additional environmental problems. Black sacks are easily torn and distribute rubbish on to our streets. They also attract rats and other vermin and we believe the whole waste collection system needs a radical overhaul. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore introduce a new bin system. Ealing Council will issue free of charge to every household in the borough a permanent, solid bin container in which to keep rubbish. What form this bin will take (such as a ‘wheelie bin’) will be decided following consultation with local residents and we would support the piloting of different types of bins in different parts of the borough to see which was the most effective. RECYCLING Conservatives in Ealing are committed to raising the amount of our waste that we recycle. We believe that the key to achieving this is ensuring that any recycling scheme is accessible to everyone, easy to use and free at the point of use for all residents. It is the simplicity and ease of the Green Box recycling scheme that has made it such a successful scheme. Conservatives support the retention of the Green Box scheme and we would expand it by including the recycling of cardboard. Ealing Council is also in the process of partially introducing the Kitchen Waste recycling scheme. We support in principle the new Kitchen Waste recycling scheme and we shall be closely watching to see how successful it is. If is does prove effective, we shall continue the roll out of this scheme across the whole borough. Residents have also told us how useful they find the recycling stations across the borough, but often these are badly designed and sometimes difficult to access. We will therefore implement a programme to improve the design of all our recycling stations; making them cleaner, easier to access and free from unnecessary clutter. Conservatives believe, however, that the existing ‘pink bag’ scheme for the recycling of garden waste does not meet the key requirement of a recycling scheme being accessible to everyone and free at the point of use. We believe that the burden involved in ordering the bags as well as the 50p charge per bag actually serves as a disincentive for residents to recycle their garden waste. We will therefore abolish the ‘pink bag’ scheme and replace it with a more user friendly scheme that is free to residents at the point of use. GRAFFITI AND FLYTIPPING Wherever you live in the borough, the problem of graffiti and fly tipping is very real. It seems that there is a minority who think it is acceptable to graffiti property or dump their rubbish without any thought to the impact and misery that it causes to local residents. Often when incidents of graffiti or fly tipping are reported to Ealing Council, nothing seems to be done and it can take weeks before any positive action is taken to remove the graffiti or the dumped rubbish. In the meantime, the initial graffiti or fly tip has encouraged others to do the same and by the time Ealing Council comes to deal with the problem it has actually become a lot worse. Conservatives in Ealing believe that the current service is unacceptable. We believe that graffiti and dumped rubbish should be removed immediately and we shall therefore bring in improvements to these services. In the case of graffiti, Ealing Council is required to remove within 24 hours any graffiti containing particularly offensive or racist language. A Conservative run Ealing Council will extend this and require that all graffiti on publicly owned property must be removed within 24 hours. Where graffiti is present on properties or in areas not maintained by Ealing Council, there will be a requirement that immediate action is taken with the relevant owners to ensure that the graffiti is promptly removed. It will no longer be acceptable for Ealing Council to say that because it is not their property, it is not their problem. With fly tipping, Ealing Council already has a responsibility to deal with rubbish that is dumped on council owned property or public highways. The speed at which this dumped rubbish is picked up is often slow and it can sit for a week before it is removed by Ealing Council. Like our proposals for graffiti, under a Conservative run Ealing Council all fly tipping on council owned land or a public highway will be required to be removed within 24 hours of being reported to the council. There is a particular problem when rubbish is dumped on land or in an area where the ownership of the land is unclear. This is particularly the case in many of the areas of the borough like Acton and Northolt where the design of streets includes access roads or alleyways at the back of properties. These have become particular targets for fly tippers and often Ealing Council has refused to remove the dumped rubbish on the grounds that it is private property. Responsibility usually ends up on innocent residents who have to pay out anything up to £100 to remove the dumped rubbish themselves. Conservatives believe this to be unfair and therefore propose immediate changes upon taking control of Ealing Council. Under a Conservative run Ealing Council all dumped rubbish will be removed by Ealing Council. However, as well as dealing with issues of graffiti and fly tipping quickly, it is also important that Ealing Council improves its efforts to catch and prosecute those responsible for such acts. Creating a high quality and rapid graffiti and fly tipping service will only encourage those responsible to do it even more unless it is also backed up by a strong policy of prosecution. Despite the high levels of graffiti and fly tipping in the borough there is a low level of prosecution for such offences. It seems that little effort is made to hold those responsible to account and this has to change. A Conservative run Ealing Council will take all measures, including CCTV operations in known problem areas, to catch those responsible for graffiti and fly tipping. We will adopt a policy of prosecution in all cases and will press for the heaviest fines to be imposed upon those responsible. We will also undertake negotiations with the Police and the Probation Service to extend the Community Payback programme whereby those convicted of these offences are required as part of their punishment to give a number of hours to the community to clean up graffiti or to clear dumped rubbish. PARKS AND OPEN SPACES Our parks and open spaces play a vital role in our community. Not only are they there to relax in and enjoy, but well maintained parks and open spaces are key to achieving a decent local environment. At present our parks and open spaces are not well maintained and some of our parks have become a gathering point for groups of youths drinking, taking drugs and generally engaging in anti-social behaviour. Conservatives are committed to achieving some of the best parks and open spaces in London. We want residents to use and enjoy these local amenities regularly and to feel safe doing so. We are also committed to making the borough of Ealing one of the greenest boroughs of Ealing with a properly thought out tree planting programme that involves and informs local residents – unlike Labour’s disastrous Lime Trees culling programme which they attempted to push through quietly until public outcry forced them to back down. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore clean up our parks and open spaces. We want people to get involved in how their local park is maintained and we will therefore set up new management arrangements for those of our parks that do not already engage with communities on how their local parks are run. These new managements ‘trusts’ or ‘boards’, which will comprise of local councillors and residents, will have the powers to organise their local park as they see fit and the council will allocate them a small budget each year to bring about real improvements. A Conservative run Ealing Council will also undertake a review of the Park Ranger Service with a view to ensuring that not only are our parks properly maintained but which also incorporates Community Support Officers to patrol and secure our parks against anti social behaviour. HOUSING, PLANNING AND REGENERATION Conservatives in Ealing want to turn the dream of home ownership into a reality for as many people as possible. Wanting to own your own home is a natural aspiration and one that Conservatives have always encouraged. Home ownership promotes independence, security and responsibility. The ‘Right to Buy’, which the Conservative Party introduced, has transformed many communities by empowering tenants to buy their home. Ealing Conservatives will continue to promote right to buy, as well as looking for other innovative schemes to encourage home ownership and will support affordable and key worker housing schemes that give an equity stake to people in their properties. Providing decent homes to people in need is important. Ealing’s housing stock has suffered years of under investment and that is why we wholeheartedly supported the establishment of Ealing Homes, the arms length management organisation that now manages the 19,000 council homes in Ealing. Ealing Homes can raise capital to invest in improving our homes and a Conservative administration will give its full support to Ealing Homes in bringing Ealing’s housing stock up to the decent homes standard. Many of our proposed initiatives in this manifesto such as Showcase Streets and a tougher approach to tackling anti-social behaviour, will benefit residents on Ealing’s housing estates. Conservatives in Ealing remain committed to making our estates clean, safe with decent homes for all. From major regeneration projects like Dickens Yard and Southall Gas Works, to individual residential planning applications, all have an impact upon the environment in which we live. Conservatives in Ealing believe that there needs to be significant changes to the way Ealing Council approaches planning and regeneration. Too often we have seen large development schemes approved without the necessary amenities and local facilities in place to accommodate the people that will move into the area once the development is complete. It will therefore became a key requirement of our planning system that before any new large developments proceed that we ensure adequate transport infrastructure, school places, health and other community facilities are in place. We have particular concerns about the proposals for the Southall Gas Works site where we believe there are too many new homes being proposed for this site with little thought given to the impact upon and views of the existing community in Southall. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore revisit the proposals for the Southall Gas Works site. We want to see less housing on this site and more amenities for the local community. This process will take place in full consultation with the residents of Southall. Conservatives in Ealing will also protect our conservation areas. We have been concerned about Ealing Council’s failure to properly protect our conservation areas with planning permission granted on applications that will fundamentally alter the character of our conservation areas. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore tighten up the Borough’s planning regulations to ensure that our conservation areas are protected from inappropriate development. We will also introduce tougher new regulations to protect single storey ‘bungalow’ accommodation. Residents have said to us that they feel aggrieved by the perceived unfairness of the planning system. Many people go through the sometimes long planning process whilst others feel they are outside of the law and just build whatever they like with no attempt to gain the necessary planning permission. Often when these cases are reported to Ealing Council, no effective enforcement action is taken to the point whereby now it is argued that it is now easier to just ‘play the system’ as opposed to obeying the law. Conservatives believe that this is wrong. Those who flout our planning system must be held accountable for their actions. Conservatives in Ealing would therefore introduce a more rigorous planning enforcement measures. Where planning regulations are breached we will take action in all cases. We will not hesitate to use all powers available to Ealing Council to correct planning breaches, including, if necessary, demolition of offending buildings. ‘NEW COUNCIL, TOUGH ON CRIME’’ YOUR SAFER COMMUNITY It seems that we all know someone who has been a victim of crime. Not only is this a tragedy to the individual involved, but these crimes make us all feel less safe on our streets and in our own homes. What residents are telling us is that the victims are being ignored. The system seems more interested in protecting the ‘human rights’ of those who commit crime rather than those who have suffered at the hands of these criminals. Day after day we are told that the streets are now safer, yet in reality just outside your own front door people are spraying graffiti, vandalising property and generally bringing misery to local communities. We hear of things called ASBOs which are supposed to tackle these criminals, but the problems remain and the misery continues. Tackling crime has to be through a genuine partnership between the Police and your local council. The Police have a responsibility to respond to residents’ calls and arrest suspects when crimes are committed, but your local council can also play an important role in tackling crime. Conservatives make no apology when they say that under a Conservative run Ealing Council the rights of the victim will come first. For those who bring misery to our local communities there will be no second chances, no attempt for us to try and empathise as to why they commit crimes, but strong action on our part to make sure residents in our communities are properly protected. We will put in place tough new measures in dealing with problem individuals and families, especially on our estates, whilst also investing money to improve crime prevention and to make our most vulnerable citizens feel safer in their homes. OUR RELATIONS WITH THE POLICE It is a fact that the main responsibility for tackling crime lies with the Police. It is important for any council to work in partnership with the Police and a Conservative run Ealing Council will certainly do this. However, it is also important that a council, representing the community, is prepared to question and hold the Police to account for the actions its takes. Many residents have said to us that they feel the Police are not interested when they report a crime; that it takes hours for the Police to come in response to a call; that reporting a non-999 crime can be difficult with local police stations often closed and phone lines permanently engaged. The Metropolitan Police are currently in the process of introducing Safer Neighbourhood policing teams in every area of London. Conservatives certainly welcome this initiative, but this must not be at the expense of other policing services. All residents, no matter where they live in the borough, have the right to receive an efficient and responsive policing service. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore adopt a ‘critical friend’ relationship with the Police. We will support and encourage our Police in all that they do, but we will not hesitate when the need arises to hold them to account for what they do. FEAR OF CRIME It is a fact that peoples’ perception of crime levels is actually higher than the actual level of crime. This is mainly due to the stories we all read in the paper and the poor state of our immediate living environment. If you live in a street with poor street lighting you are less likely to want to walk the streets after dark than if your street has a good level of street lighting. It is therefore important that any council tackles these issues first. Ealing Council has recently signed a Private Finance Initiative agreement to modernise all of the street lighting in the borough. This is an expensive undertaking and there are concerns about the council’s ability to fund this commitment properly. However, Conservatives in Ealing believe that this is an important commitment and we will implement the PFI street lighting programme to install modernised street lighting in every road in the Borough. Conservatives also want to go further and address the concerns of the most vulnerable in their own homes. Many of us surrounded by our own families feel safe in our homes, but for many, especially those who are elderly and live alone, their fear of crime does not stop at their front door. Often this fear of crime can be significantly reduced by simple crime prevention measures around the home but for many living on a state pension and a reduced income it is difficult to afford these items. Therefore a Conservative run Ealing Council will, in cooperation with the voluntary sector, extend the existing Handyman and Beesafe schemes to enable vulnerable groups to have security measures installed in their home. This will be delivered at cost price to the council, but in particular priority areas these will be installed free of charge. We want to see all councillors, working with their local communities, involved in developing crime prevention schemes in their own areas. It is often local resident groups and organisations and ward councillors who are best placed to identify the needs of their own communities as opposed to the council bureaucracy and Conservatives want to develop this in the area of crime prevention. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore expand the remit of the council’s Area Committees to enable them to take on the task of crime prevention schemes. As well as providing budgets to these area committees for environmental and transport improvements, we shall also allocate crime prevention money to enable area committees to work with local residents in undertaking their own schemes. ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR Conservatives believe that the toughest action should be taken against the minority who engage in anti social behaviour and make the lives of many residents a complete misery. Too often it seems that little effort is made to apprehend and punish those responsible. This is true in all areas of the borough, but particularly so on our estates where youths often roam late at night causing chaos with no parental control. This will change under a Conservative Ealing Council. A Conservative run Ealing Council will not hesitate in seeking Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) to be imposed on any one engaging in anti social behaviour. We will also seek where necessary the imposition of dispersal and curfew orders banning certain people from defined areas at set times. We want these ASBOs, curfew and dispersal orders properly enforced and, where breached, the maximum punishment under the law imposed. We are also clear in stating that in ultimate cases we would seek the imposition of ASBOs effectively banning individuals from the borough of Ealing altogether. Conservatives want to go one step further on our many estates in the borough. It is an absolute tragedy that the peace and tranquility of a whole estate is often shattered by the activities of one or two individuals or families. Despite many complaints from residents, nothing seems to be done and in the end residents give up and have to endure misery night after night from a mindless few. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore introduce new tenancy agreements for all tenants in council maintained properties making it a condition of tenancy that no member of a family shall engage in anti social behaviour. Where they do, we will evict those responsible. We will also evict immediately any households where it is shown drugs are being sold or used on the premises concerned. Conservatives also believe that for a few, no amount of action will make them change their ways and stop engaging in anti social behaviour. For these few, we believe that the public at large has a right to be warned about them and the misery they bring to the local community. For these few, a Conservative run Ealing Council will introduce a new ‘name and shame’ system. We will advertise via public advertisements the names with pictures and area of residence of those who blight all of our lives. CARE FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE Conservatives in Ealing believe that services for vulnerable people of all ages should be based on the principle of helping people to live as individuals. We want our children and adults living and working healthy, dynamic and independent lives. At present, Conservatives believe that Ealing Social Services are not achieving this. A history of poor management and budgeting has meant that our most vulnerable’s needs are not properly addressed and many are left waiting for months for help. This state of affairs led in November 2004 to Ealing’s Social Services being rated as the worst in London. FINANCE AND MANAGEMENT The Social Services Department has a history of consistently overspending its budget – in the 2004/2005 financial year it overspent by £1.8 million; money that could have been used elsewhere to improve local services. It costs Ealing Council on average £711 to deliver care for children that costs the average Council £630. This additional cost does not represent a better service for those in care, but it does represent ineffective budget management, poor contract monitoring and a failure of leadership. The same story can be seen in adult care, where costs in Ealing are £501 compared with an average of £459. The Social Services budget will be balanced within the first year of a Conservative run Ealing Council. Every single social services contract will be reviewed and where the right care is not being provided by contractors changes will be made. We will also reduce the significant differences in cost between what Ealing pays for its care, compared to neighbouring councils. PREVENTATIVE CARE The financial problems within the Social Services Department not only represents bad budgetary management but it also prevents Ealing Council from making the necessary investment in ‘preventative’ social care. Investment in preventative social care is crucial. Often investment at an early stage can mean that our most vulnerable will not need to access the social services system further down the line and often at that stage requiring much more intensive care. Not only does it ultimately save resources, but it more importantly enables many to stay in their own homes and lead independent lives. The present Labour council has ignored the benefits of investing in preventative care; preferring instead to go for the short term financial cut. In many cases this has meant some services abolished, eligibility criteria changed so less qualify for a particular service, or huge increases in charges for services that has deterred many on lower incomes from using them. These have included home help for the elderly and increases in charges for meals on wheels. Investment in preventative care can be expensive and this is why it is imperative that the wastage and poor budgetary management issues outlined above are resolved. ‘CARE IN THE HOME’ POLICY Services for vulnerable people of all ages should be based on the principle of helping people to live as individuals and supporting them in supporting themselves. Whilst Ealing Social Services do provide a number of good services, the excellent work of the voluntary sector cannot be underestimated in terms of how much they contribute to the delivery of care in the home. Many carers and carer organisations have told us of their frustration in dealing with Ealing Council – the bureaucracy involved, the lack of direction and a lack of ‘joined up’ thinking in how it delivers many of the services that combined create the overall care package. Carers have told us that they feel that their needs are ignored and decisions are made by this Labour Council based more on financial savings, than their own needs. A good example of this was the announcement of the Labour Council that it intended to close Heller House but which was subsequently reprieved after a long campaign by users. However, this reprieve is only short term and users still have some concerns as to its future. Conservatives in Ealing are committed to the future of Heller House and pledge that under a Conservative run Ealing Council, Heller House will not close. The whole ethos towards the concept of care needs to change and Conservatives are determined to recognise the immense contribution of the voluntary sector and to bring their expertise into the formulation of council policy. A Conservative run Ealing Council will bring together the council and the voluntary sector to create a new ‘Care in the Home’ policy. This policy will define a greater role for the voluntary sector in supporting the overall council policy of allowing older or vulnerable people to live their lives. The new ‘Care in the Home’ Policy will also bring all the services together into one strategic delivery service; bringing together day and respite care, transport, advisory and support services, meals on wheels and support for carers. This work will begin within one month of the Conservatives taking control of Ealing Council. However, in relation to meals on wheels, the Conservatives will make one immediate change upon taking control. At present charges for frozen meals on wheels are the highest in London, and there is evidence to suggest that reducing the cost from the present cost would actually encourage more people to take up this option. A Conservative run Ealing Council would therefore reduce the cost of frozen meals on wheels to £2.50. RESIDENTIAL CARE For those who live in residential care and sheltered housing, the Conservatives are committed to ensuring that standards of care and service are second to none. All of our residents are entitled to live in clean and decent accommodation, backed up by the highest care and support services. Often responsibility for carrying out these services is delegated by Ealing Council to contractors and our first priority as a council must be to ensure that all of these facilities are run to a standard acceptable to residents and their families. Therefore a Conservative run Ealing Council will increase the number of inspections it makes of residential care homes and sheltered housing accommodation and involve residents in the improvement of facilities. Residents of sheltered accommodation have told us how much they used to value their resident warden. Not only did the on site warden provide reassurance but they also provided a familiar face and someone to help residents with all aspects of their lives. Resident wardens were abolished by this Labour Council in another of their cost cutting exercises and we believe this action has diminished the quality of life for our residents in sheltered accommodation. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore re-introduce resident wardens in our major sheltered accommodation sites. OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE YOUNG SCHOOL FINANCE Conservatives believe in an education policy which sees every child treated as an individual with the brightest children pushed and encouraged to achieve the highest standards whilst providing the support and attention for those who need more help. The best people to deliver this are those who run our schools, not politicians at the Town Hall and as a council we should be ensuring that our schools have the proper resources to carry out this role. Conservatives see Ealing Council’s role as ensuring successful schools are left to get on with running their schools, whilst offering help and support to those schools that need it. A Conservative run Ealing Council will ensure that every penny of the ‘schools budget’ that comes from central government goes straight to the schools for them to manage themselves. We will also undertake a thorough review of the Education Department at the Town Hall to ensure their budget is being spent effectively and that the borough and its schools are achieving value for money for the services it receives from the council. SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND ADMISSIONS It is a fact in the borough of Ealing that ‘choice’ in terms of selecting a school for your child has a limited meaning. Every year many parents are left disappointed as their child is unsuccessful in securing a place at their preferred school and are effectively forced to accept a place at a school that is not the first choice of the parents. The reason for this is the perceived differences of quality of education delivered at individual schools and parents naturally seek to get their child into what they consider is a ‘better’ school. It is a fact, for example in high school admissions, that some high schools could fill their number of places a number of times over, yet others struggle to reach their full number of places. These problems would not be so prevalent if the standards of the poorer performing schools were improved and brought up to the achievement levels of the more successful schools. If parents had confidence that whatever school in the borough they chose would deliver a high standard of education, then there would be less of the annual rush to get a place at a selected few schools. Often these differences are not through a difference in the quality of teaching, but through a difference in leadership and management of a school. Successful schools often simply cannot expand because of the physical constraints of a school site, but it is also imperative to get into some of the less performing schools the same management ethos as that in the more successful schools. A Conservative run Ealing Council would therefore support moves for high performing schools to take over the running and management of those schools who need help and support. We would negotiate with the DfES to see how this could be achieved and put together an action plan with the schools involved to raise standards in our less performing schools. SCHOOL DISCIPLINE Conservatives in Ealing believe that the disruptive behaviour of a few pupils should not be allowed to hold back the progress of other children in our schools. The law often seems to act as a hindrance to our schools in taking effective action with the emphasis being on ‘inclusion’ rather than dealing with the problem. A Conservative run Ealing Council will not hesitate in supporting our schools who wish to exclude persistently disruptive pupils from their schools. We will do all we can to integrate excluded pupils back into mainstream education but only after proper assessment gives us confidence that they will no longer undermine the chances of others in the classroom. PROMOTING LITERACY IN OUR SCHOOLS Over the last decade large sums of public money have been spent on countless initiatives designed to improve standards of literacy. Yet almost a quarter of all Ealing’s young people still leave primary school unable to read or write properly. One of the main reasons for this is, despite masses of evidence to the contrary, the government insists on promoting through the National Literacy Strategy the failed teaching methods of the last forty years – namely whole word recognition (“look and say”) and worse still whole language (“look and guess/ “real books”) Conservatives in Ealing believe that all the evidence based research indicates that the most effective way of teaching children to read and write is through structured synthetic phonics; “fast and first” as demonstrated recently to such good effect in Clackmannanshire LEA where children leave primary schools with average reading ages of over 3 years ahead of chronological age. The Government have recently acknowledged the effectiveness of this approach and we are therefore committed to providing headteachers with the resources and staff training necessary to implement this in their schools. NEW HIGH SCHOOL For many years now there has been a particular problem in the north of the Borough with high school places. There is a significant part of north Greenford where parents have no automatic allocated high school place and are at a particular disadvantage in the admissions system because of their distance away from many of the schools. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore begin work on identifying a site and funding for a new high school in the north of the borough. BOROUGH APPRENTICESHIPS The Government has set targets for even more young people to go to university. As a result what we are seeing is more and more young people pushed towards higher education, doing courses they do not particularly want to do or will train them for anything substantive afterwards, and racking up huge debts through tuition fees and student loans. Conservatives believe that this drive for more people to go to university is denying opportunities for many of those aged 16 and above who want something different. For many young people the option of higher education is something they do not want to pursue and we believe that a wider range of opportunities should be made available to them. It is a fact that in many work areas there is an increasing shortage of skilled workers – electricians, carpenters, plumbers to name but a few. Ealing Council itself reports that in many areas of the work it undertakes, recruiting the properly skilled workers is an immensely difficult job for example in recruiting social workers, planning officers, environmental health officers. We believe that Ealing Council can play a vital role in helping to bring in and support young people to train for their future working life. Not only through the council itself, but also through many of the contractors it employs and the links it has with businesses across the borough. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore introduce a new Borough Apprenticeship scheme. It will take the form of the traditional apprenticeships and we will aim for it to cover as many skilled areas as possible (not just council areas). Our aim is to get 100 school leavers on to the scheme in its first year and then expand it from there. YOUR LOCAL TRANSPORT SYSTEM For the past 12 years Labour have promoted their anti-car agenda. They have concentrated on pet schemes designed to restrict motorists without offering practical alternatives to relieve congestion for car and public transport users alike. Conservatives in Ealing will scrap many of Labour’s ill considered schemes and offer a balanced approach to developing a truly integrated transport policy. WEST LONDON TRAM Conservatives in Ealing oppose the proposals for the West London Tram Scheme. We believe the tram scheme will bring to the communities of Acton, Ealing, Hanwell and Southall traffic chaos, increased congestion, residential roads blighted by ‘rat running’ traffic as well as costing millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. The West London Tram Scheme has been supported by Labour despite the clear rejection of the scheme by residents of Ealing through the public consultation undertaken by Transport for London. Despite the recent delay announced by Transport for London, they and Ealing Council have also signalled their determination to press ahead with the ill thought out scheme. A Conservative run Ealing Council will immediately reverse the council’s pro-tram stance. We will withdraw as a joint promoter of the tram and, like councils in Hillingdon and Hammersmith & Fulham, will become opponents of the scheme. Conservatives in Ealing are prepared to use all means, including going through the courts, to stop this scheme from being implemented. BUS LANES In the right places, bus lanes can play a role in helping to improve the flow of traffic for public transport users and car drivers alike. Unfortunately, in recent years the Labour administration in Ealing have imposed bus lanes in communities where conditions are unsuitable and against the wishes of local residents. A Conservative run Ealing Council will review every single bus lane in the Borough. It will also suspend the implementation of any planned bus lanes whilst the review of existing bus lanes is taking place. Where any existing bus lane fails to meet the key objective of improving traffic flow and helping to significantly decrease bus journey times, it will be removed. Additionally, upon taking control of Ealing Council, the Conservatives will abolish the bus lanes along Church Road, Mandeville Road, Petts Hill and Yeading Lane in Northolt. We will also formally request that Transport for London remove the bus lane from the section of Church Road, Northolt that comes under their control. It is also the case that many drivers avoid using bus lanes even outside the hours of operation of the bus lanes. This is mainly due to the confusion caused by the various number of differing operation days and hours of bus lanes. Conservatives will therefore introduce standardised bus lane operating times across the borough. We will abolish all 24 hour bus lanes and any times of operation on a Sunday. ROAD MAINTENANCE AND LOCAL TRANSPORT SCHEMES The present Labour administration in Ealing has slashed the budget for roads maintenance in recent years. As a result, there are many roads in the borough that are riddled with potholes and are in a poor condition. A Conservative run Ealing Council will double the number of roads being resurfaced every year. It is also a fact that in recent years Labour have introduced a number of local transport schemes that simply have not worked. Instead of addressing these issues, the Labour administration pretend that nothing is wrong and ignore the views of local residents. A good example of this are the new traffic lights at the junction of Du Cane Road and Old Oak Common Lane in Acton. The lights replaced a mini-roundabout and their installation led to the loss of two zebra crossings leaving pedestrians unable to cross. Despite a petition signed by over 3,000 residents, nothing has been done. A Conservative run Ealing Council will not only undertake to resolve the above, but will undertake a review of all local transport schemes implemented in the past four years. All schemes should be shown to have achieved the aims that justified their original implementation. Where they do not, the necessary action will be taken, including, if necessary, the removal of the relevant transport scheme. There are also many points of congestion in our road network that could be eliminated by improved design. We will undertake a review of every major traffic ‘hotspot’ in the borough to see if a redesign of these areas would improve traffic flows. We will be prepared to try different schemes, including piloting the introduction of a multi occupancy lane scheme, to improve traffic flows and reduce congestion.
PARKING AND CHARGES The borough of Ealing continues to be an attractive place in which to live and work and as a result developers are keen to build ever more developments. Labour’s anti car policies mean that often large developments are accompanied by only a handful of car parking spaces (put an example in here). In some cases such as the redevelopment of the Gosai Cinema in Northfields Avenue 34 new flats are being developed and Ealing Council refused any parking spaces to be built with them. In Greenford Broadway the Council has approved 69 new flats with parking provision for just seven cars! Labour believes that by restricting the number of car parking spaces, people will decide not to own cars. There is no evidence to support this view and what in reality happens is that people seek alternative parking – usually on other nearby already heavily parked residential roads. Conservatives on Ealing Council will therefore abolish the current limitations on parking spaces with new developments that are contained within the Local Development Framework. We will introduce a higher limit to require more parking spaces within a development to ensure cars are not being forced to park on public highways and which will be more sustainable on a longer term basis. Every year Ealing Council introduces more and more Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ) across the borough. Conservatives in Ealing do support CPZs but only where a clear majority of residents in an area support it. A Conservative run Ealing Council will tighten up the process for introducing new CPZs and we will freeze the cost of CPZ permits for the lifetime of the next council. Conservatives in Ealing also pledge to freeze the parking charges in all of the borough’s car parks for the lifetime of the council. The Conservatives will also reverse the Labour administration’s recent decision to introduce parking charges on public holidays. CYCLING Cycling is an under used pollution free transport alternative for many in Ealing. It not only cuts down on congestion but also promotes exercise and good health. Labour’s record in providing safe routes for cyclists and secure storage for bicycles is extremely poor. Conservatives in Ealing want people to feel confident about cycling – to feel safe using our roads on cycles and to be able to securely park their bikes without fear of them being stolen. A Conservative run Ealing Council will therefore invest in providing more safer cycle routes across the Borough. We will also ensure that adequate cycle parking is provided in all our major town centres and in key transport locations. YOUR COUNCIL TAX BILL Conservatives believe in lower taxation and achieving value for money. A Conservative run Ealing Council would aspire to be like the London boroughs of Westminster and Wandsworth who year on year charge a low council tax, but in every national performance table come out as excellent in the services they deliver. Ealing at present are a long way off achieving this. In 2002 when the present Labour council were re-elected, council tax for band D properties in Ealing was £885. Today it is £1,309. In just four years a council tax bill for an average property has gone up by over £424 – an increase of 48%! The past four years is not unique. Since 1994, when Labour started running Ealing Council, average ‘Band D’ Council tax has increased from £470 to £1,309. If Council tax had risen in line with the cost of living, it would today stand at just £628, so the additional £681 is the direct result of tax and spend decisions made by local Labour politicians. Few will forget in 2003 the 25.9% increase in Council tax in one year and under a Conservative administration the residents of Ealing will never face such increases. The Liberal Democrat record on Council tax is even worse. Every budget from 1994 until 2003 the Liberal Democrats argued for higher year-on-year increases in Council tax than Labour. It was not until 2003 that they saw the kind of Council tax increases they like, when they voted for Labour’s notorious 25.9% increase. Despite all of the extra taxation that Labour has charged residents, few believe that this additional money has gone to improve the quality of local services. Indeed, the significant fall in levels of customer satisfaction in Ealing Council suggest that many believe services have actually got worse. Upon taking over running Ealing Council, the Conservatives will begin an immediate ‘waste cutting’ programme. A specific Cabinet portfolio job will be created with a team designated to ensuring that every £1 raised through the council tax in some way properly contributes to the delivery of a key service to local residents. If it is does not, then whatever it presently funds will be abolished and the money directed towards the delivery of public services. Conservatives in Ealing believe that residents want to see their tax money working for them and for the wider benefit of the community where we also acknowledge the valuable work done by voluntary organisations in the Borough. Ealing Council must be open with residents when setting its budget and state precisely what programmes will be delivered from a particular budget. Year on year a Conservative run Ealing Council will hold council tax to levels as low as possible. It is vital that the Leader of the Council and other leading members of the council are held to account by local residents for all spending decisions made by the council and the Conservatives pledge to hold regular ‘question times’ around the borough where members of the public can come and question the Leader of the Council and the Cabinet about their decisions April 6, 2006 |