Labour has stopped participating in the Thames Gateway organisation which worked to improve employment, transport, housing and regeneration of those areas which border the Thames (including Greenwich and Woolwich).
Despite considering it ‘extremely successful’, the Labour run Council thinks our waterfront communities no longer need its support and funds.
As Gordon Brown’s controversial planning quango, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, opens its doors this month, Colin Bloom, the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Erith & Thamesmead, has warned it will fuel public disillusionment with politics. It could mean that even more unwanted developments like the Belvedere Incinerator, Belmarsh Prison and the Crossness Sewage Works could be dumped onto the area as a result.
At the end of 2008 Labour decided to spend another £2m on propping up the ailing street sweeping system. The Labour Cabinet heard boasts about vast improvements in the service from over a third of roads below acceptable standards for litter and detritus in 2006/07 to one fifth of all roads in 2007/08.