Council Election Manifesto 2016

Thanet Green Party

Council Election  Manifesto 2016

Our Vision for Thanet

 *  Thanet will be a thriving place where everyone has the chance to enjoy the security of a living wage, decent affordable homes, excellent public services and a good quality of life

*   Thanet Council  will be open and inclusive, involving  local community  groups wherever possible, so that people feel they are part of transparent local decision making processes

*  Our beautiful local environment will be respected, enhanced and protected

* Thanet will be a place where people want to work and bring up their families and which is attractive to visitors.

Why Vote Green?

The Greens are a rapidly growing force in politics. With over 60,000 members, we are probably now the third largest party in England, and attract more young members than any other party.

The UK is, by any measure, one of the world’s richest countries. Unemployment, low pay, limited housing, scarce school places and strains on the health service are the results of political and financial choices made by successive Governments. It’s time for change.

A Green vote is a choice for a better and fairer Thanet. The Greens are fully committed to an economy where everyone has living wages, decent homes and jobs and a secure future in protected surroundings. The Greens offer a vision for a better, fairer, sustainable future.

We will campaign in Thanet to:·        Ensure the Council pays the Living Wage to its own staff  and expects the same of contractors

·        Create an open, transparent, bottom-up Thanet regeneration group including local businesses, educators and voluntary bodies to plan for economic growth

 

 ·      Ensure new industries and housing are built on brownfield sites,  incorporating high eco standards, providing sustainable employment and safeguarding our green spaces and heritage

·        Replace the current unfair and divisive  school system with properly funded high quality comprehensive schools under the control of democratically elected local authorities

·        Build more council and housing association homes at affordable rents, and enforce current powers to improve the position of those in private rented accommodation

·         Improve bus services with concessions for all those unable to pay full fares, introduce concessionary rail fares for people commuting to work or study, and pilot 20 mph safe zones near schools and in densely populated residential areas

·        Replace Thanet Council's cabinet system with a more democratic committee system, create a new unitary authority to replace Kent County Council and devolve as much power as possible to town and parish councils and local community groups

For more details on our policies and plans, read on…

 

Regeneration and Jobs
After years of neglect, Thanet now has huge potential to re-launch itself as a modern visitor destination, using modern communications and infrastructure to develop 21st century industries.

We will develop a visitor plan to promote and safeguard our seafronts, heritage and countryside. We will support the development of leisure-based business including hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, cafes and bars, and the jobs that go with them. We will review Ramsgate Port and Harbour, transforming the port into a leisure-focused modern marina.

We will work closely with the Discovery Park and former Manston Airport site owners to bring new industries and jobs to Thanet. We will lobby to extend the Enterprise Zone to cover Thanet's designated employment sites and the airport to encourage investment.

Thanet is home to a diverse and growing creative community. Green Councillors will work more closely with local artists, musicians, film-makers, and digital media professionals in developing the creative sector.  Help will be given in providing workspace, and supporting events and festivals to attract visitors, create jobs and increase business opportunities.

In all cases we will stress the need for ‘green industries,’ whether by extending solar energy initiatives or in ensuring new builds are environmentally sound and sustainable. Thus new jobs will go along with lower carbon emissions and protecting our environment.

We believe Thanet needs a new regeneration group that meets in public and involves local Councillors and employers, College and training providers, community groups and charities. We believe in developing plans and policies from the bottom up rather than the top down.

The Green Party supports the Living Wage. Our Councillors will campaign for all Thanet employers to pay the living wage, setting an example by ensuring that TDC pays the living ages and commits to avoid using zero hours contracts. In its external contracting, a Green Council will endeavour to ensure that those who provide it with goods and services also pay the living wage.

Health and Welfare

We oppose further NHS privatisation and advocate increased funding. We will work with health professionals and patients’ groups to tackle the massive health inequalities between Thanet and the rest of the Kent, and campaign for extra funds to tackle this injustice.

Green Councillors will work with the Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group to ensure GP and primary care services meet people’s needs. We are pleased to see the progress made through the hard work of staff and volunteers at the QEQM Hospital, and will work with the Trust to help the hospital continue to improve and come out of special measures.

We will promote life-long health, fitness and enjoyment of the outdoors in our lovely area, to improve our quality of life and relieve pressure on our health services. We recognise the vital work of the many local groups that promote health, fitness and wellbeing, protect our environment and provide support and friendship for vulnerable people of all ages.

Housing

Thanet faces a housing crisis. Homelessness and inappropriate multiple occupation are increasing. House prices are not high by national standards, but buying a house remains out of the reach of many people living in what remains a low-wage economy. Yet private rents are spiralling while there is not enough affordable social housing to meet demand.

We will fight for investment in more high-quality Council homes for rent, and work with Housing Associations to provide more social housing in Thanet. We will press the Council to use its powers to bring long-term empty properties back into use, to ensure new private housing developments include at least 30% social rented housing and to encourage private landlords to provide safe, high quality homes at affordable rents.

We are committed to developing policies which will ensure that all new housing is built to the highest ecological standards, including solar and rain water re-use technologies and that building takes place on previously used ‘brownfield’ sites, not on our green spaces. We will also support self-build and housing cooperatives to develop and flourish in Thanet.

Transport and Environment

Rail travel in Britain is amongst the most expensive in Europe, despite massive subsidies from our taxes to private rail companies. The Green Party calls for re-nationalisation of the railways to benefit rail passengers rather than shareholders. We welcome plans to reduce rail journey times from London to an hour or less, which would be a major boost to our economy - but oppose the expensive, unnecessary and environmentally damaging plans for a £14 million Parkway station.

We will argue for investment in bus services, including new shuttle services and park-and-ride schemes at strategic locations across Thanet, to reduce accidents, pollution and traffic jams. We will lobby Kent County Council to reinstate the Young Person’s Freedom Pass.

We support 20mph limits around schools and would work with residents to pilot 20mph Home Zone and residents' parking schemes in residential areas to evaluate their success. We will press the Council to examine affordable cycle hire schemes and promote walking.

Our Councillors will protect Thanet’s environment by resisting development on our green field sites and agricultural land, and opposing any industrial, commercial and housing plans which risk polluting and despoiling our area. We will work with Southern Water and the Environment Agency to ensure no more raw sewage is dumped on our lovely beaches.

We will promote solar, rainwater re-use and insulation technologies and eco-building techniques on all new buildings. We will help the Council review and improve its refuse and recycling service.

Thanet Greens support animal welfare. We will do all we can to stop the cruel export of live farm animals from the Port of Ramsgate, and work with Government Agencies, Kent County Council and the RSPCA to ensure welfare checks are of the highest standard.
Education and Training

We believe early years education should be free to give children the best start in life.

School education should promote equality, inclusiveness, curiosity, wellbeing and responsibility. Research shows pupils do best in mixed-ability environments with low student-teacher ratios. We oppose separating children on the basis of one exam at 11 and funding grammar schools better than others. Exam results in Thanet non-selective schools are poor, so many of our young people are not getting the best start in life.  We would overhaul the system to address this.

We believe in lifelong learning and a system that offers people the chance to learn throughout life. In Thanet we have an excellent FE College and training providers, who must be closely involved in planning for the area’s regeneration, to help both young people and adults improve their skills and gain more secure and better paid jobs. We believe that education at all levels should be free and that young people should not be burdened with debt before they even start their working life.

Kent County Council

Thanet Green Party believes that KCC is too distant from Thanet and does not have the local knowledge and understanding to tackle local issues effectively. We will campaign to set up a Unitary Council, perhaps in conjunction with neighbouring District Councils, to cover the functions currently carried out by KCC, including education, youth work, social services, highways and public health as well as those currently falling to District Councils.

Thanet District Council

The existing Thanet District Council has an appalling reputation for

incompetence and secrecy. The independent members of its own standards committee reported: 'The Council has the appearance of a dysfunctional organisation whose behaviour and internal squabbles adversely affect the delivery of services, capital projects etc. to the residents of the local district.'

We would begin to tackle this by abolishing the current Cabinet system where a few Councillors take 95% of decisions, replacing it with a committee system with decisions taken by cross-party groups of Councillors, who can co-opt members of the public with specialist skills and knowledge where needed. All committee meetings would be filmed and broadcast live on social media. We would review the Council’s secrecy rules, making information available to promote openness and transparency. We would review Thanet’s flawed public consultation processes and give residents more influence in policy making.

Town and Parish Councils

We would also then review the roles of Parish and Town Councils, looking at the possibility of devolving more decision making and spending powers to these very local democratically elected bodies. We believe that the best decision making is local decision making.

Who will pay?

Our proposals and suggestions for improved policies and services have a price tag, and so prompt the question 'how would all of this be paid for?'

In one of the richest countries in the world, austerity policies are not inevitable: they are a political choice. Just a few ways in which the riches and talents of the British people can be released to restore full employment and a properly funded welfare system would be:

·       Taxing corporations in the UK on all of the revenue raised in the UK

·       Repatriating the vast assets, counted in trillions of pounds, held by UK based companies and individuals in foreign tax havens

·       Not renewing the Trident missile system at a saving of between £31 and £41 billion

·       Ensuring that employers pay a living wage, so removing millions of working people from the welfare budget (and turning them from benefit recipients into tax payers.)

·       Extending the principle of 'the polluter pays' (- the new charge for plastic bags is a small token example -) to make the producers of mess large and small - McDonalds, the local chip shop, Southern Water -  pay for cleaning up our sadly degraded environment.

Locally our Councillors will lobby Government to significantly increase its support for Thanet Council: why should one of the most deprived areas of the country have one of the lowest levels of Government financial support? We will raise extra funding for services by attracting new business into the area, maximising income from non-domestic rates.

We will seek government support to replace the millions of pounds lost by Thanet District Council through incompetence and mismanagement in recent years.

We will explore entering commercial relationships with private companies to generate new forms of income. Our Councillors will identify and help secure more Government and European grant aid to support the Council’s work. They will review the Council's borrowing and establish new priorities based on meeting pressing social need. We do not rule out an increase in Council Tax, but will support a residents’ referendum if an increase is proposed.
 

Fairness, jobs and quality of life are worth fighting for