Labour Budget Will Hit Freemantle Ward Hard

As a local councillor representing the Freemantle Ward I was extremely disappointed and angered to read the budget plans of the new Labour Administration. Many of the cuts and hikes in charges will disproportionately hit those that I am elected to represent.

Labour came into office full of promises and as predicted, one by one they are breaking them. They immediately u-turned on their pledge to keep Oaklands Pool open. They promised to invest more in SureStart and they are cutting £1m a year from this service. They promised to spend more on libraries, yet they are slashing opening hours, bringing local libraries to the verge of closure. Shirley Library is having its hours cut by 15 hours a week. Pensioners are having their council tax raised by 12%, despite a last minute pre election promise by Cllr Richard Williams not to do this. Even the weekly bin collection was due to be axed and it was only spared because of a grant from the Government.

A 35% reduction in street cleaning in local roads will mean lots of more litter. Local residents associations are fighting an ongoing battle to keep the area clean, with regular litter picks and this will come as a real slap in the face to many people. I am very worried about the cuts to the upkeep of local parks. We already have problems with drinking in Lake Park and cans and glass left behind as well as the ongoing problem of dog fouling. We have more and more young families in Freemantle and keeping the local parks clean, tidy and safe is essential.

Parking is one of the biggest problems faced by residents in Freemantle Ward. I have fought for a long time to stop new charges coming in for first permits in residents’ parking zones. Labour tried to bring in charges last time they were in power and now they are back they are quick to charge residents to park. Worse still this doesn’t even guarantee residents a space in their road. Residents’ Parking enforcement stops at 6pm so many residents will end up paying for permits and much of the time they will be worthless. Labour plans to introduce on street parking charges in the evenings in the city centre will mean more workers parking their cars in local roads after 6pm, making it even harder for residents to park. Also charging people to park when they are shopping in Shirley will hit local businesses hard, damaging trade and costing jobs, at a time when everyone is struggling.

Labour have not thought through their proposals. They were elected with no plan and no vision for the city and now residents are suffering the consequences.

"The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum"

Southampton City Council faces huge challenges in the years ahead. It must save £30M to balance the books next year alone. This is a big task, if at the same time Council Tax is to be kept down for residents who are already struggling with the rising cost of living, and services that are important to local people are to be protected.

The outgoing Conservative Administration understood this and for the past 5 years we have met these challenges head on. In our last 2 years we had to find £45M of savings and we did this whilst freezing council tax and protecting services to residents; like the weekly bin collections, Sure Start centres, libraries, leisure centres, supported bus routes, and at the same we were able to put more money into repairs to the roads and pavements and into looking after at risk children and vulnerable adults. We also kept council job cuts to the minimum and went all out to attract employment and business to the city.

We achieved all of this because we had a clear sense of direction, were prepared to make difficult decisions but be pragmatic where necessary. Most importantly we were honest and we never made a promise that we did not keep.

Labour by contrast, desperate for power, have promised the earth, but have no strategy to deal with the problems ahead. It is sadly inevitable that we now face several years of Labour tax hikes, service cuts and job cuts and that we will see them break one promise after another, letting down voters, users of council services, council staff and even their union backers.

Labour’s very first decision in office was to create, at taxpayers’ expense, extra jobs for their councillors, new committees and chairmanships. At any time this would be unsavoury and nepotistic but in the current financial climate it shows spectacularly bad judgement. It only adds to the financial difficulties of the City Council, meaning that more service cuts, job cuts and tax rises must be endured. But it highlights something even more worrying – that Labour still don’t get it and that they are still in denial about the state of the council’s finances.

Labour need to very quickly wake up, show some political maturity and urgently get in place some sort of plan. They need to start being honest with themselves and more importantly with the residents of Southampton. For the city’s sake I hope that this happens soon.

My fear is that it won’t and that as one constituent of mine put it in an email to me on the day after the elections, “the lunatics are now in charge of the asylum.”

Massive Expansion of Nursery Provision Planned for Southampton

The trade unions in Southampton are deliberately misleading and trying to frighten local residents ahead of the local elections on 3rd May. Unions have flooded the city with bill boards suggesting that nurseries are under threat. These bill boards have only been put up in Southampton, Birmingham and London and are part of the union campaign to unseat the current Conservative Council locally and buy an election victory for the Labour Party.


In Southampton nursery provision is NOT under threat and is in fact due to expand dramatically in the coming years to meet the demand resulting from the rising local birth rate and to provide extra support for 2 year olds from disadvantaged families.


Local Conservatives are pledging to create an extra 1,800 nursery places for 2 year olds by 2014 and have pledged to protect all 14 local Sure Start Centres.


We continue to work actively to sustain existing, good quality childcare and assist nurseries to expand, where appropriate to meet this demand, including the nurseries directly managed by the Council.


In the Conservative February Council budget we made revenue provision for expanding places for 2 year olds for 2012/13 and the city received a capital grant from the Department of Education of £3.9M recently which may be used to support the provision of additional places.


The unions should be ashamed of themselves for these despicable tactics. The Conservatives are massively expanding nursery provision in the city and so for the unions to suggest that nurseries are under threat is totally false. They are needlessly worrying local families for their own political ends. Their strikes last year disrupted our bin collections and caused misery for local residents and now they are playing politics with vital services to young children and families.

Southampton Conservatives Launch 2012 Manifesto

Southampton’s Conservative Councillors today launched our Manifesto for the local elections in May 2012. We have published the document on our website, (CLICK HERE) and you can also download the document as a pdf. We hope that this will be of interest to you and we would welcome any comments or thoughts that you have. You can feedback to us on this email or via the website.

This election will be crucial for Southampton and residents will have a clear choice about what sort of council they want and what sort of political leadership they want for the city.

Despite the enormous challenge of having to find £75m of savings between 2010 and 2014, Southampton Conservatives are committed to doing everything possible to protect front line services, to keep costs down for local residents and to continue to move the city forward and bring in business and jobs.

We are ensuring that important front line services are maintained, keeping OPEN all our Sure Start centres, libraries and leisure centres and protecting the weekly bin collections and budgets for looking after vulnerable residents and repairing the roads and pavements.

We will freeze Council Tax for a second year running and avoid hiking up charges for council services like parking charges and adult social care charges.

We are continuing to invest in the city’s public realm and infrastructure and despite the gloomy financial outlook nationally we are attracting businesses and jobs to the city.

We are cutting out waste in the council and reducing back office costs. We have cut the numbers of directors at the council in half and have reduced the numbers of senior managers by a quarter. At the same time we are protecting jobs at the front line so they can deliver important services to the public.

The Conservatives have been in office in Southampton since 2008 (with a period of minority administration in 2007) and we have stuck to ALL the promises we made to Southampton residents. We have done what we said we would do, we have been honest with residents and we have dealt with the significant challenges the city faces in a responsible and robust way. We have not made promises we could not keep and we do not intend to do so now. However with key elections in May it is important that we set out our new commitments to the city as we ask residents to vote for us again, to run the city until the next set of local elections in 2014. This document is a manifesto for 2012 – 2014 and it is Our Contract with Southampton.

Save Our Sure Starts

This weekend Southampton Conservatives launched our campaign to protect all of Southampton's Sure Start children centres.

Labour have made it clear that they will cut up to 1,500 council jobs, putting at risk vital local services such as SureStart and libraries if they gain control of Southampton City Council in May 2012. We can't let this happen!

Hypocritical Labour Shut Local Facilities But Say Don't Blame Us

The hypocrisy of Southampton's Labour Party over the closure of Portswood and Shirley police stations is absolutely incredible. It also offers a very clear picture of the approach they would take if they ever run Southampton City Council.

Southampton has two representatives on the Hampshire Police Authority; myself a Conservative and Cllr Jacqui Rayment, the Labour representative and Chairman.

At every recent Authority meeting I have spoken out against the loss of our community police stations. I spoke out against it at the public meeting at St Georges School along with 11 other Southampton Conservative Councillors. I have fought for future replacements to have front desks that are open to the public. I have suggested numerous ways to keep front desks, such as sharing facilities with Southampton City Council and the use of police volunteers. I voted AGAINST the closures.
Labour's Chairman voted FOR the closures, and has repeatedly defended the decisions in meetings, saying that our local police stations don't need to be open to the public in an age when people have the internet and telephones.

Now for Labour to say that they shouldn't close is not just hypocritical it is utterly deceitful. Their excuse? Don't blame us, blame the government. This is exactly the same excuse Labour in Manchester and Liverpool are using as they close libraries and Sure Start centres. Don't blame us they say when they close the local facilities, blame the government. Don't blame us for wrecking the country's finances, blame the banks, blame the Americans, blame anyone other than us.

They will do exactly the same in Southampton if Labour run the City Council. They will close our libraries, our Sure Start centres and leisure centres, cut the weekly bin collections and hike up council tax. And they will say don't blame us, blame the government. However it doesn't have to be like that. Southampton Conservatives will keep open ALL our libraries, Sure Start centres and leisure centres and we want community police stations that are open to the public and we will fight to keep them!

Conservative Budget Will focus on Protecting Council Services

Today the council released its draft budget for 2012/13. The council's financial situation is extremely challenging and next year £15M must be saved to balance the books.

Conservative Councillors are focused on ensuring that front line services are protected. This means keeping all our Sure Start Centres, leisure centres, libraries and other community facilities open. It means protecting the road and pavement repairs budget and protecting the vital bus routes that the council supports. And it means ensuring more support for the most vulnerable children in the city. I am very pleased that in my area of responsibility, Childrens' Services and Learning, there are no service reductions planned.

It is important that in these difficult times we keep costs down for local people. We have committed to freezing the council tax again and are keeping the 10% discount for pensioner households. We are ensuring that other charges like parking charges are frozen.

An important priority for Conservatives on the council is keeping front line council staff in work, delivering the services that residents pay their taxes for. We recently changed staff terms and conditions and this saw some pay cuts for higher paid staff. This was done to protect jobs and services and we are sticking to our commitment to protect 400 council jobs. Next year's budget will keep compulsory redundancies as low as possible, likely to be less than 50.

This is all in stark contrast to Labour in Southampton, who have said that their plans involve big increases in council tax, of at least 4.5%, the axing of 1,500 council jobs and the serious damage this would mean to front line council services.

Funding Boost for Local Children

The Coalition government is keeping its promise to spend more on schools and to target extra funding towards the most deprived parts of the country.

The details of the funding settlement for Southampton schools has now been announced. On average Southampton schools will receive an extra 3.4% in funding in this coming year and this includes more than £2.7m extra in the form of the new Pupil Premium.

The Pupil Premium means that extra funding is targeted to support children who receive Free School Meals and to children whose parents serve in the Armed Forces.

This is fantastic news for Freemantle Ward with many local schools set to benefit from the Pupil Premium:

Banister Infant School + £13,760
Foundry Lane Primary School + £32,650
Freemantle C Of E Infant School + £10,750
St Mark'S C Of E Junior School + £37,840
Regents Park Community College + £80,380

Locally Conservative Councillors are protecting funding for the city’s Sure Start Centres so that, despite the tough financial times we ensure that all these valuable facilities remain assessable for local families.

Visit to Central Sure Start

On Monday I accompanied Maria Miller MP, Shadow Minister for Familes and the MP for Basingstoke to the Central Sure Start in Clovelly Road. We met with staff and parents to discuss their experience of the service and Conservative plans to help families.

David Cameron has made it clear that he wants Britain to become the most family friendly country in Europe and improving Sure Start is central to that vision. If the Conservatives form the next government we plan to recruit an extra 4,200 health visitors nationwide and have greater emphasis on health outcomes.

Maria commented during the visit that she was impressed by how closely Southampton City Council and the city's Primary Care Trust worked.