Greenwich Conservatives have put forward proposals to fund more police officers for Town Centres, help residents opposing HMOs in their areas, invest in local parks and reverse Labour’s cuts to Adventure Play Centres. The proposals have been published as councillors prepare to vote on Greenwich Council’s budget for the next three years. Councillors are meeting on Thursday (26 February) to set the budget after the Labour Government confirmed a £3 million cash cut in funding for Greenwich over the next three years.
The Labour-run Council had published figures forecasting a record budget gap of £101 million by 2029/30, after spending years of delaying the efficiency savings required to achieve financial sustainability. Conservative councillors have developed fully-costed alternative Budget proposals to cut Labour’s continued wasteful spending and replace it with new investment in local people’s priorities. The Conservative proposals would:
- Fund 2 additional Police Officers for the borough’s Town Centres
- Support residents to protect family homes from conversion to HMOs
- Invest in local parks through a new Green Spaces Improvement Fund
- Reverse Labour’s cuts to the borough’s Adventure Play Centre service
The Conservative proposals, if voted through on Thursday night, would come into effect this April and can be easily funded by eliminating wasteful spending on PR and communications, and cutting the cost of local politics.
Conservative councillors are also calling for the Labour administration to go further in addressing the forecasted £101 million budget gap by sharing back-office services with other London boroughs, going further and faster to deploy AI to help improve services and identifying new opportunities to generate income in areas such as commercial property and external sponsorship.
Councillor Matt Hartley, Leader of Greenwich Conservatives, said: “Residents are telling us they are more concerned than ever about crime and anti-social behaviour in our Town Centres, and about the accelerating loss of family homes to HMOs. Our Budget proposals take direct action on these two priorities, as well as creating a new fund to improve our local parks which are so precious to local communities.
“And given Labour’s deeply damaging cuts to the borough’s Play Centres, we are also proposing to restore the full budget for the Play Centre service, to give the Council time to develop new proposals and run a real and genuine consultation that takes young people’s views into account. “Our plans would make a real and immediate difference to our borough – and I would urge councillors from all parties to vote for them at the Town Hall.
“And on the bigger picture for the Council’s finances, Greenwich Labour has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into making the efficiency savings that have so clearly been required for decades. After 12 years of holding them to account at the Town Hall, I am afraid studying their new Budget gives me no confidence they are prepared to go far enough on transformation to close their £101 million black hole.
“In areas like shared back-office services, deploying AI and commercial income generation, there is not nearly the level of ambition we need to see. If Labour don’t change course then it’s our residents who will pay the price in the form of even harsher frontline cuts in the future.”
You can read the Conservative alternative budget proposals in full here.
