Cllr Elizabeth Campbell is the Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council
Here in Kensington and Chelsea we are busy gearing up for our local elections in May.
This will be my third election as Leader, and I know the rhythm of campaigning well: meeting voters, knocking on doors and spreading our message. But this time, it feels different.
The Government has shown that it has absolutely no interest in the people of Kensington and Chelsea. Our residents, more than most, have borne the brunt of the Government’s financial ineptitude.
Foreign-born residents who had called the borough home for many years, have been forced to leave to escape Rachel Reeves’ vindictive non-Dom tax reforms. Our businesses, whose Business Rates support the whole country, are struggling through as they cope with Labour’s £25bn National Insurance tax grab. And now for the first time, homeowners are facing a so called ‘Mansion Tax’, a government-imposed tax simply to live in their home. Nearly 20 per cent of our homes in our borough face paying the new tax, including many flats that are anything but a mansion.
As if that were not enough, the government have landed a hammer blow to the very foundations of our public services, cutting our funding by £108m over the next four years, while suggesting we plug the gap by imposing huge Council Tax increases on our residents. Sometimes our borough feels under attack from all sides.
Now this does not mean that Kensington and Chelsea is giving up. Our businesses are doing their best to contribute to the national economy, bucking the trend of business failures through hard work and dedication. Our residents are among the most successful and productive in this country, contributing 2.2 per cent of total tax receipts nationwide, the highest rate of any borough in the country. Despite the Government’s best efforts and thanks to the dogged determination of our residents and businesses, our borough will always be a great place to live and do business.
But Kensington and Chelsea has become a microcosm of the damage inflicted by this Labour Government: ever-higher taxes, ideological policy making and a refusal to ask how services can be delivered more efficiently and effectively.
This is why it is vital that we hold the line and keep Kensington and Chelsea blue.
We need to show that there is an alternative to Labour’s fairy tale economics and Reform’s empty populism- and that there remains strong support for serious competent Conservative administration.
That is the message we will be taking to voters in May.
We will put financial competency before anything else. No promises that we can’t keep, and savings and efficiencies before any tax rises.
We will be innovative and bold. Last year, we became the first council to unlock institutional funding from our pension fund, providing us £100 million to purchase good quality temporary accommodation at no cost to the taxpayer.
And finally, we will be laser focussed on our residents’ priorities. Twice weekly bin collections, award winning parks, or clean streets may seem mundane to some, but delivering the basics better than anyone else really matters to those who live here.
Reform will continue to promise the earth with absolutely no plan to deliver it, and Labour will continue to tax, tax, tax.
In Local Government, Conservatives can show how to do it differently. Efficient, competent and high-quality services, with residents’ priorities at the centre of everything that we do.
