Conservative councils give better value for money

Tomorrow people all over the country will have the opportunity to elect local councillors.

These elections are about who will run local services for the next four years.

There elections are nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit. If we have not manged to leave the EU in the next few weeks there will be European elections in a few weeks time which will be about Brexit, but the elections tomorrow are about who decides whether you get planning permission to extend your house or whether a developer gets planning permission to put fifty houses in a nearby field, who decides how often your bins are emptied, and about how much council tax you have to pay.

In future elections there may well be a wider choice of parties but in these council elections there are very few UKIP candidates and virtually no Change UK or Brexit party candidates. There are some independents standing in some wards but in most parts of the country your choice is between a Conservative, Labour or Lib/Dem councillor  and sometimes just Conservative or Labour.

In the Copeland Borough Council elections, for a mayor and 33 borough councillors, there are Conservative, Independent and Labour candidates for Mayor. For the borough council seats, the Conservatives are the only party standing a full team of 33 candidates: Labour are standing 27, there are also six independent candidates, one Lib/Dem candidate and one UKIP candidate.

(In Seascale and Gosforth there is still an election for the Mayor of Copeland but not for local councillors as nobody stood against the sitting Conservatives David Moore and Andy Pratt who were therefore returned unopposed.)

Since these elections are mostly between Conservative, Labour and Lib/Dem candidates - or just Conservative and Labour in most of Copeland - it is reasonable to ask how the records of Conservative, Labour and Lib/Dem councils compare.
  • Conservative aim to deliver good quality services and lower council tax. Across the country, Conservative councils consistently manage people’s money carefully and provide better local services. 
  • Conservative councils fix more potholes than Labour councils, recycle more rubbish and charge people less in council tax – on average £93 less than Labour councils and £137 less than Liberal Democrats for a typical band D home. 
  • Labour’s record shows that Labour councils mean higher tax and worse services. 
  • On Sunday, we learnt that Labour’s plans could increase taxes by £1,460 on a typical Band D home. 

Why this matters

Tomorrow people across England have the chance to vote for Conservative councillors who will deliver better services in your area with lower taxes for you.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Quote of the day 24th July 2020