Agenda item

Given the excellent stewardship of the Council by Medway Conservative Group over the past 20 years, this Council resolves to place on record its very serious concern that the opposition group are fighting this year’s local election on the basis of a broad range of proposals, many of which appear to fall outside the scope of the Council and which would also have a seriously detrimental impact on the Council’s finances.

“Given the excellent stewardship of the Council by Medway Conservative Group over the past 20 years, this Council resolves to place on record its very serious concern that the opposition group are fighting this year’s local election on the basis of a broad range of proposals, many of which appear to fall outside the scope of the Council and which would also have a seriously detrimental impact on the Council’s finances.”

Councillor Freshwater proposed the following amendment:

“Lines 1-2: Delete “the excellent stewardship of the Council by Medway Conservative Group over the past 20 years,” and replace with “Medway residents are greatly frustrated and annoyed over the current Brexit fiasco and betrayal of the British people and democracy by Parliament as it raises great doubt on any promises made by Conservative group and Labour, to tell the truth, and provide proper and essential infrastructure funding for the 37,000 new houses in the Local Plan, that will turn Medway into one massive building site,”.

Lines 3-7 Delete “very serious concern that the opposition group are fighting this year’s local election on the basis of a broad range of proposals, many of which appear to fall outside the scope of the Council and which would also have a seriously detrimental impact on the Council’s finances.” and replace with “support for the following UKIP manifesto pledges:   

·         UKIP Councillors are not ’whipped,’ and our Local Manifesto will ensure all Council policies and decisions, are made in the best interests of local Medway families and communities - not just to satisfy government policy behind closed Medway Cabinet doors.   

·         UKIP would spend the current £170 Million government bid on crumbling local infrastructure, services, and the local housing crisis. We would programme the building of 4,000 new genuinely affordable local homes to rent or buy by local people on brownfield sites, to respond to the housing crisis set out in the recent SHELTER report. 

·         We would take action against rogue landlords providing substandard housing to the most vulnerable in our society, and stop the persecution of motorists and commercial businesses, and find solutions to promote local business and free parking. 

·         We would require the new Local Plan to list the Ward funding necessary for crumbling existing and new schools, roads, local transport, new additional hospital beds and GP’s services. We need additional mental health, family, and children’s services, and adult social care fit for an ageing population. We need additional police on our streets, youth, and homeless services, local leisure and sports facilities. 

·         We would require yearly action plans for the dangerous pollution generated from 250,000 car movements each day, from 37,000 proposed new houses.

Our crumbling communities, with no affordable local housing to rent or buy, deserve much better and Councillors who respect democracy and this is why the reins of Council control should be handed over to a more capable and fair UKIP on the 2nd May.”

In response to questions from Members relating to the validity of the amendment, the Mayor ruled this out following advice from the Chief Legal Officer that the amendment was not valid as it required a seconder, as required by Council Rule 11.1.1.

Councillor Maple, supported by Councillor Murray, proposed the following amendment:

“Delete: Given the excellent stewardship of the Council by Medway Conservative Group over the past 20 years, this Council resolves to place on record its very serious concern that the opposition group are fighting this year’s local election on the basis of a broad range of proposals, many of which appear to fall outside the scope of the Council and which would also have a seriously detrimental impact on the Council’s finances.

Add: have:

• Spent more than £125,000 on a Japanese Memorial Roundabout
• Wasted thousands on a giant E as part of a failed Hollywood style sign project
• Failed twice to obtain City Status
• Failed to secure Channel 4 locating to Medway
• Scrapped the Annual Visitors Parking Permit
• Paid tens of thousands of pounds to Arriva to get them to move out of the existing bus station
• Removed the Sir John Hawkins flyover increasing traffic problems in Chatham Town Centre
• Seen an increase in overflowing bins in Gillingham High Street
• Introduced Bulky charges resulting in increased fly tipping
• Failed to establish if £45 million is the correct value for the Pentagon
• Failed to secure Beechings playing fields from repeated incursions
• Failed to provide commercially viable Castle concerts
• Failed to rejuvenate local markets
• Failed to realize a waste site would require £9m investment so now forced to increase borrowing
• Relocated Strood Library
• Failed to tackle the never ending congestion around Strood
• Singled out Medway’s most used library in Gillingham to close an hour early every evening
• Wasted money on concrete balls in front of Gillingham Railway station, taking away the facility to drop off and pick up passengers/ visitors 
• Scrapped the Annual visitor parking ticket in controlled parking zones - at the same time doubling the cost of a daily visitor ticket to £2.
• imposed parking charges at the Strand whilst keeping free parking at Rainham Riverside and Capstone Park in Hempstead 
• Failed to get another retail offer at Britton Farm mall after the closure of the Coop and Budgens
• Failed to produce a Local Plan, having had it rejected twice.
• Failed to meet any housing targets but especially affordable housing
• Not spending s106 money effectively
• Ended up with planning permission for building on Capstone Valley
• Failed to change the SWEP protocol for 3 days
• Overseen the death of several homeless individuals on our high streets
• Threatened the continued viability of the Sunlight Centre by trying to dramatically increase the rent
• Cut footfall at the Sunlight Centre by making it too expensive to park in the area
• Opposed measures to keep people in school who would otherwise have to stay home regularly due to period poverty
• Closed or sold all council nursing and residential homes leaving residents exposed to private sector failure
• Cut social workers then use agency workers
• Outsourced community mental health then forced to take it back in again as service to vulnerable residents was so poor
• Been investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority with an upheld complaint that Medway Council attempted to rebrand itself as city
• Failed to take meaningful action to tackle out of town taxis operating in Medway
• Allowed a known anti-Muslim, racist councillor to remain in their party for years
• Paid out £38k to a local resident for failure to inform members about noise risks from the Rochester airport planning proposals
• Closed Deangate Ridge with a failure to adequately consult with community, allowed losses to build up with no action with a large ongoing cost to the maintenance of the empty site
• Sold wild area (ex-allotment site) Copperfields having promised not to as a manifesto pledge in 2011
• Cut back the valued community wardens service
• Refused to set up formal community consultation forums after Rochester Town Council consultation
• Cut supplementary questions reducing the opportunity for residents to hold its council to account
• Failed to review the flawed Medpay Scheme, despite previously agreeing to do so, whilst the gender pay gap increased.
• A lack of diversity in Cabinet
• Had a portfolio holder who had no idea he had responsibility for CCTV whilst more than half of CCTV Cameras were not working across Medway
• Attempted to charge a mum £300 for holding a charity walk for toddlers
• Had the lowest Key Stage Two results in the country in 2012
• Continues to have slow progress to improve those results with Medway only at 96th in the country and still below the national percentage achieving the expected standard
• Oversaw the closure of children's centres resulting in 100,000 fewer visits despite promises that none would close
• Seen high levels of social worker vacancies leading to poorer support for vulnerable children
• Received the 2013 inspection results in 'Inadequate' grading and 2015 inspection results in 'Requires Improvement'
• Received the 2017 inspection of Special Needs results in 'significant areas of weakness' identified, including the quality of Education and Health Care Plans
• Continued high levels of pupil exclusions
• Created chaos in notifying Medway Test results in 2016 and 2017
• Introduced chaotic revised SEN transport arrangements
• Been below target for reducing obesity in children starting school
• Fewer children succeeding in Early Years Foundation Stage
• Below target for the number of good or better secondary schools
• Attempted to shut schools in Chatham & Rochester (stopped only by the tenacity of parents, pupils and professionals)
• Reduced youth services resulting in increased anti-social behaviour
• Called Sure Start ‘childcare on the cheap’
• Wasted on Fireworks to celebrate Dutch victory v British Navy in the River Medway from money which was meant for Sure start 
• Created the failed experiment Medway Commercial Group which has failed a number of responsibilities it was given.

This Council further recognises the positive cross party working on the campaign to oppose the ludicrous proposal by Boris Johnson and reaffirms its commitment to opposing any proposals for an estuary airport”.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was lost.

On being put to the vote, the substantive motion was carried.

Decision:

Given the excellent stewardship of the Council by Medway Conservative Group over the past 20 years, this Council resolves to place on record its very serious concern that the opposition group are fighting this year’s local election on the basis of a broad range of proposals, many of which appear to fall outside the scope of the Council and which would also have a seriously detrimental impact on the Council’s finances.