Ealing Liberal Democrat Councillor Jonathan Oxley shares his thoughts on Labour-run Ealing Council and its management of the borough.
“With the Local Elections approaching in May of next year, it’s high time that the performance of Ealing’s Labour Council was examined.
“Labour Councillor’s like to think of themselves as compassionate and the voice of the disadvantaged but their cuts to public services are making them the new nasty party. Let’s start with Children Services. Ealing’s Labour Council is closing eight of the Borough’s children centres, including Maples in Acton and Hathaway and Log Cabin in Ealing.
“Children centres provide critical services to Mums and Dads including health visits and nursing, midwifery and mental health services. And they’ve been remarkably successful at transforming outcomes for disadvantaged children. Last month, the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies estimated that for every £1 spent, children centres generated around £11 of benefits for children attending them. That’s one of the reasons why the Liberal Democrats are opposing Labour’s cuts and presented a fully costed budget to keep all our children centres open.
“But it doesn’t stop there. While the Labour Government in Westminster sought to remove winter fuel payments from millions of hard pressed pensioners across the country, Ealing’s Labour Council had plans of its own to cut services for the elderly. Ealing Labour are closing Acton’s Michael Flanders centre for the elderly, one of only a handful of centres in the Borough that provide much needed respite and support to residents with dementia and complex needs.
“We all understand that budgets are tight and savings sometimes have to be made. But these cuts in critical services would have been entirely avoidable if Labour hadn’t been so incompetent in collecting developer levies. These levies, known as Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), have been available to Councils since 2010, but Ealing’s Labour council won’t get round to collecting them until 2026! Ealing’s Lib Dems exposed this incompetence, which is estimated to have cost the Council and residents £90m in lost income.
“Ealing Labour are no longer the party of working people but instead the new nasty party. Their mismanagement of Ealing finances shows them to be incompetent, too. After 15 long years running Ealing Council, it’s time to turf Labour out at next May’s local elections.”
