Policies and Campaigns

 

OUR LOCAL MANIFESTO 2010:

Croydon Green Party Local Elections Manifesto

1/ Poverty. We support the London Living Wage Campaign (£7.60 per hour) and call on the Council to ensure that all council workers and contractors are paid a living wage. We will also reduce fuel poverty for pensioners and low income families by helping them to take up the available free home insulation.

2/ Fly tipping. This must be dealt with swiftly and robustly by better co-ordination of council staff and local police, providing a free fly tipping hotline, scrapping the collection charge for heavy items, and punishment of offenders. More litter bins should also be provided at busy points e.g. outside schools and at bus stops.

3/ Crime Prevention. Increase the number of police on the streets to prevent crime, gather intelligence and reassure residents. Reduce the threat of crime with improved street lighting, prompt repair of vandalised amenities, and staff such as park rangers.

4/ Save local shops. Abolition of the uniform business rate to provide support for smaller local shops, services and businesses. Free parking for up to 30 minutes in local areas to encourage use of local shops. Halt the development of new out of town retail parks and branded local supermarkets (Tesco Express, Sainsbury’s Local).

5/ Education. We will work towards smaller class sizes to improve learning, extend affordable pre and after school activities, set up more youth clubs, offer free healthy lunches with meat free options for all children, and increase local democratic decision making by calling a halt to the expansion of academies.

6/ Housing. Tackle homelessness and poor housing by bringing empty homes into use, funding more social and council housing, and compelling developers to provide a higher proportion of affordable homes in new developments. New houses should be built to high environmental standards and overdevelopment should be halted to preserve space for gardens and allotments. Local taxation should be made fairer.

7/ Recycling. Increase recycling rates from 34% to 50% of household rubbish by 2014 by also recycling food waste, all plastic and carton containers. Offer free collection of heavy items such as furniture and mattresses. Reduce recycling costs for businesses, charities, churches to boost recycling. Expand reuse centres such as ARC.

8/ Clean air. Cancel the incinerator for Croydon. This hugely expensive PFI project will have a serious effect on health in Croydon due to toxic nano-particles caused by the burning of plastics and other toxic materials. Polluted air causes premature deaths.

9/ Safer streets. Consult with local residents to extend the 20mph zone to cover all residential roads in Croydon. This lower speed limit reduces the casualties from road accidents by 40%, especially amongst children under the age of 11, and protects cyclists and pedestrians.

10/ Transport. Encourage bus use by improving frequencies on busy routes and giving buses priority at East and West Croydon Bus Stations. Extend the tram to Crystal Palace. Increase cycling by creating more and safer cycle lanes. Encourage parents and children to walk to school. Keep free passes for the young and old.

11/ Keep NHS public. Provide 24 hour access to local healthcare for conditions which do not require in-patient treatment, and let the Emergency Department at Mayday Hospital concentrate on the very ill. Ensure access to an NHS dentist for all, and encourage healthy lifestyles by exercising and eating healthy food.

12/ Local Voice. Give people a greater say in what happens in their neighbourhood. Use the Sustainable Communities Act, which seeks community participation in innovative ways, to protect the local economy and environment. Introduction of more community noticeboards.

 

Our key policies for London:
Free insulation available to everyone
A living wage of at least £7.45 for the poorest paid
More affordable housing - 60% of all new homes
20p off all bus and off-peak tube fares
Cheap loans for renewable energy generation
A bigger say for small business - 50% of space in new developments to be small units at affordable rents
No airport expansion
Tube PPPs and rail services in London brought back into public control
Public transport and bikes before new roads
People-friendly speed limits - 20 mph everywhere except a small number of major routes

Green London Assembly members:
The Green Party already has two Assembly Members representing the whole of London. In the London-wide Assembly election every vote counts and this is where you have the best chance of electing more Greens to the London Assembly.

Greens making a difference:
The two Green Members on the London Assembly, Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson, have already made a huge difference. With a pivotal role in the Assembly's budget-setting, these are some of their successes:

• Tripling to £60m the money available for cyclists and walkers
• Setting up the London Living Wage Unit to tackle poverty pay
• Starting the new Green Homes Service that supports Londoners who want to make their homes greener
• Securing the East London Green Grid, which creates new green space and protects flood plains in east London
  

With more elected Greens we can make more of a difference.

The South London Waste Plan:
Recycle or burn? The Sutton and Croydon Green Party has grave concerns that the new consultation will lead to the construction of an incinerator in nearby Beddington. Such a prospect should alarm us all. Emissions from even the most modern incinerators are shown to dramatically increase cancer and other health risks, as well as infant mortality. Incinerators also have a terrible track record of subverting recycling efforts as they run on the same waste streams targeted for recycling.
To find out more, click here to read the Croydon and Sutton Green Party's extensive response to the recently concluded first round of public consultations.

Save our Schools:
The Green Party is the only party opposed to the privatisation of Croydon’s secondary, primary and infant schools under the guise of transformation into academies.We believe that the pupils and teachers of schools like Haling Manor deserve better than being treated as a business opportunity.
Click here to find out more.