Political Viewpoint

Leigh On Sea News: Political Viewpoint – By Southend Council’s Labour Group Leader and Councillor for St Laurence ward, Coun Daniel Cowan.

 

POLITICS has been a hot topic in Leigh since the infamous Conservative take-over of Leigh Town Council in May 2023.

The political mismanagement at Leigh Town Council with non-Conservative councillors shut out, staff suspended, documents disappearing from the website, Conservative councillors walking out of meetings, and residents being insulted by Tory councillors with a chip on their shoulder, has been an advert on how not to do local politics, but we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought it was an isolated case.

The Conservatives running Southend City Council aren’t much better, and where do we start with the shower in Westminster who have really set the bar very low indeed?

And we can trace all of these issues back to the campaigning of the Conservative MP to get Tory councillors elected in Southend to “save weekly bin collections” and the idea of the Conservative MP, Anna Firth, to get more Conservatives elected to Leigh Town Council that saw both councils taken over by the Tories last May.

The Tories claimed them taking control in Southend would save weekly bin collections, it didn’t. They voted for fortnightly collections and, as confirmed at a recent scrutiny meeting, they didn’t even consider the option to keep weekly collections even though it was on the table.

The Tories claimed them taking control in Leigh would improve the running of the council, and they have succeeded in running the council – into the ground!  The town council has been fantastic for Leigh and it is no surprise that the people of Leigh are so vocal about their dissatisfaction with the way the Tories are running it down.

Leigh will be able to have its say on who runs the town council again in 2027, but this May residents can make a statement in the local elections for the city council, and in the General Election whenever Rishi Sunak finds the bottle to call one.

Under my leadership, Labour won’t make grand, unfunded, undeliverable promises like the Tories did last year.

We will do our best to salvage what we can of the waste collection contract and save local services like we did, assisted by colleagues, in amending the Tory budget.

That amendment saved the Dementia Community Support Team, invested £6.5m in our roads and pavements, put back £1m of investment in the cycle network, saved the graduate scheme, so we can stop relying on agency workers, hired three new community safety officers and three new traffic wardens to monitor parking around schools, and invested new money into bringing events and more visitors to the city.

The trade off is tweaks to parking charges on the seafront, equivalent to asking for an extra 15p from every visitor who comes to Southend. It’s not perfect, but we’ve found a way to balance the budget without asking residents to keep footing the bill. At the same time, we’ve reduced parking charges in our shopping areas by 11%, kept parking free on Leigh Broadway, and increased the hours for the Southend Pass to help local residents and our retail businesses as well.

Labour wants to build a city we can be proud of, and our five point plan going into this set of local elections is fully costed, achievable, and realistic.

We will introduce a free bulky waste collection service to tackle fly tipping and help us keep our city clean.

Labour will fix more potholes and pavements than the Tories by investing £6.5m in our repairs budget. Labour proposed this investment at the last budget meeting, but the Tories voted against it!

Labour will tackle antisocial behaviour by ensuring that every area has a named Community Safety Officer to cover the whole city.

Events like El Galeon, LuminoCity, and City Jam brought thousands of extra visitors to Southend. We will work towards 20 weeks of pier events and 6 major events like the Halloween Parade and LuminoCity each year to boost the local economy and create new jobs.

And finally, Labour is committed to protecting our libraries and family centres from further Tory cuts. We saw off the planned cuts to library services this year, but we know the Tories want to close at least two libraries, with Leigh, Westcliff, Southchurch, and Kent Elms in their sights.

We’re ready for May’s local elections and we believe that our five point plan for the City of Southend will deliver on the priorities of local people from Leigh to Shoebury and everywhere in between.

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