Now more than ever, the responsibility of any Mayor is to treat every penny of Londoners’ money with care. Because it’s not my money. It’s yours.

And it will only ever be used on the things that take London forward. To invest in transport infrastructure, put more police on the streets, make the Olympics a success and build more affordable housing.

Anything spare should always be passed back to Londoners.

When I was elected in 2008, Londoners were tired of 8 years of successive council tax hikes.

I promised to end the culture of waste created by Ken Livingstone and keep taxes low.

I kept this promise. We’ve frozen our share of council tax every year. And we’ve done this by ruthlessly ferreting out waste.

• We no longer spend £10,000 on a subscription to the Morning Star.
• We no longer spend £3m a year on a personal propaganda sheet for the Mayor.
• And we haven’t spent £20,000 on a lunch for Hugo Chavez. Or £30,000 on a trip to Cuba.

By working over the last three years to turn around London’s finances, I am able – for the first time in the history of the mayoralty – to cut my share of council tax.

The choice at this election could not be clearer. My record shows that, whenever possible, we keep taxes and charges low.

• We scrapped Ken Livingstone’s plans for a £25 tax on family vehicles.
• We scrapped the Western Extension of the Congestion Charge, providing relief to small businesses.
• We extended the Freedom Pass to 24 hour operation. And we put Oyster on national rail, leading to cheaper fares for many.
• And we’ve done this in the teeth of a recession, whilst increasing police numbers and protecting the investment that will help our city grow once more – providing jobs and prosperity.

Ken Livingstone’s record shows he puts up taxes and charges at every opportunity. We couldn’t afford it during the good times, and we certainly can’t afford it now.

His Labour allies on the London Assembly have already voted against a budget that freezes council tax. Next week, they will be asked to vote to cut council tax. I will urge them to do this, and I urge you to join me in sending them a message to vote the right way.

Please visit: www.borisbudget.com

Best wishes,

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

A council tax freeze benefits every London household during these tough times.

But Ken Livingstone’s hand picked Deputy Mayoral running mate in the Assembly is leading the Labour charge against the freeze, instead promoting an increase in council tax.

It confirms that Ken Livingstone would take us back to the days when council tax went up every single year.

During these tough times, Londoners cannot afford a council tax increase on top of their household bills. It is a tax that everyone pays, so every household will suffer if Labour go back to council tax rises year after year.

That is why the Mayor needs your help to keep council tax frozen. Please visit www.borisbudget.com  now to urge your local Assembly member t o support the budget and help save Londoners money.

This election is a choice between Boris Johnson, who will keep council tax low and Ken Livingstone who will put taxes up.

• Given £13 million of taxpayers’ money to the Rose Theatre
•  Spent £160K on consultants for Ancient Market Place
• Spent £8.8million on ‘failing’ One Council Programme
• Hiked parking charges  by 200%
• Lost £600k in parking revenue.
• Kept us paying the highest Council Tax in London.

CLEVER, ISN’T IT?

One interesting feature is that, although only delivered last week, it doesn’t mention the coming bye-election or even hint at the name of the candidate. Yet they must have known about this for some time and they do have a candidate already selected. Apparently he lives in Southborough, but I don’t know him in spite of my long and intimate association with Southborough Residents’ Association. I also find it strange that he didn’t put himself forward for election 15 months ago, if he was really interested in the welfare of Surbiton Hill residents. Another unknown Lib Dem!

It’s also amazing that that they claim to have delivered a ‘budget tax break’.

Thanks to them we still pay the highest Council Tax in London in spite of the fact that

1. The Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson, has frozen the GLA Precept on Kingston’s Council Tax for four years running and
2. The Coalition Government (Conservatives 307 MPs; Lib Dems 57) would not sanction any increase in Council Tax this year.

So their role in matters has been minimal – yet they claim to do it all!

Same old Lib Dems! – same old twaddle!!

The statement by Cllr Rolson Davies Lib-Dem Executive member for Finance was released despite residents across the borough continuing to pay the highest council tax in London and the second highest in the whole country!

 Cllr Howard Jones said: “that the council has been somewhat fortunate to deliver a £71k under spend when £827k alone was saved due to the coalition government’s decision to cease the Build Schools for the Future programme an area that the council had no control over”.

In addition, Cllr Priyen Patel said “a further £206k was saved due to a one-off income of VAT rebates concerning parking fees dating back over 40 years. Taking these two ‘un-budgeted’ events into account the council would of in fact recorded another overspend in excess of £962k!”

 This result comes against the backdrop of cuts to adult social care and hikes in fees for the most vulnerable, whilst senior officer’s pay continues to remain ‘excessively’ high in relative terms to the size of the borough.

 Whilst yet again more taxpayers money has been pumped into subsidising the Rose Theatre. All this compounded further by hikes to parking charges and business parking which has undoubtedly had a knock on affect on the Council’s income after recording a staggering fall in revenue of over £503k from off-street parking.

Not that any of this affects Cllr. Houston because, as we know, HE LIVES IN ELMBRIDGE.

Council Tax will be frozen this year at its 2010 level

We are pleased to see that RBK has made some tentative steps towards sharing back-office facilities with Sutton and Merton, which should result, according to the RBK website, in savings of £5m over the ten year agreement period. The website doesn’t specify whether that means £5m each or £5m shared between the three of them. The steps are, however, much more tentative than some other Boroughs are adopting and one hopes for greater boldness in years to come.

One blot on this year’s budget, however, is the decision to cut further community services to those in real need of them while at the same time continuing to break the pledge made years ago that the Rose Theatre would not be subsidised out of the Council Tax. What amounted to a three-year subsidy of £600,000 a year has been replaced by a five year one of £500,000 a year. When will this ever end?

The announcement comes after Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Local Government (Cons), said that pushing up parking charges was “the lazy approach to saving money”.

The Council has deferred any decision on the unpopular and outrageous hikes in both on-street and contract parking, recently announced by the Council on Christmas Eve, which would adversely affect small businesses and the viability of the town centre, after representations from Cllr Jones.

The Conservative Group Leader said ‘very sensibly they have listened to our argument and agreed that all financial decisions should be addressed in totality rather than piecemeal throughout the year and we’ll wait to see the budget proposals in February when we will be able to take a holistic view of our precarious financial situation.’

Dear Paul,

Today we unveiled radical new reforms that will mark an end to the hoarding of power within central government and hand control back to individuals, communities and councils.

For the first time, we will establish powerful new rights for communities, revolutionise the planning system, and give local neighbourhoods control over housing decisions.

Under Labour, central government became too big, too interfering, too controlling and too bureaucratic. But we will push power downwards and outwards to the lowest possible level.

Under Labour, council tax more than doubled. But we will freeze council tax, abolish Labour’s bin taxes and give local residents new powers to veto future excessive council tax rises.

Our plans also include:

• Putting local communities in charge of the look and feel of their locality through a new system of neighbourhood planning
• Freezing council tax for 2011-12 and protecting you, the taxpayer, from Labour’s planned tax hikes
• Giving local groups new rights to protect their local shops, pubs, libraries and leisure centres through a Community Right to Buy
• Freeing councils from bureaucracy by giving them more freedoms and flexibilities to act in the best interests of their area

It’s time to put local decision-making back in the hands of local people.

Yours truly,

 

Eric Pickles
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

A Conservative Administration will introduce the first Carbon Budget for the Royal Borough of Kingston. This will give an open and transparent way to measure our efforts to respond to the growing concerns on Climate Change, and the Budget will be set annually at Budget Council and enable residents to see what measures the Council is taking to respond to the threat of climate change. And to see the returns on the investments in both financial and environmental terms on a year by year basis.

The Council will first need to agree how it will measure its current position and Carbon Foot Print; how it will set an annual Green Budget and then how it will monitor its performance during the year. The Council already has a great deal of this data that can be accessed but it does not use it or publish it in a form suitable for setting a Carbon Budget.

• We will host a Public Workshop in July 2010. From this we will establish a Working Party made up of Councillors, Officers and Environmental Groups and Specialists who will work together to first agree the methodology that the Council will need to adopt to support the creation of a Green Budget.

• The Council will then produce an initial Environmental  Statement. This will then be reviewed and revisions made to the process. This initial statement will be used to produce a test Green Budget in March 2011. The Council will monitor this test budget through the next year and make improvements to the process.
• In September 2011, RBK will commission the first Annual Environment Statement and this will be presented to the Executive in November 2011 for adoption. The Administration will then use this statement to base its first official Green Budget proposals for the Budget Council in March 2012.

Our Green Budget will be defined as much by the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the earth’s atmosphere by the activities that are under our direct control. We will also look to embrace other measurements that support other direct action on climate change.

• The Green Budget will be made up of a series of proposals, budgeted and included in the Annual Budget of the Council.

By introducing a Green Budget we believe we can draw together all the resources at our disposal and engage meaningfully with other organisations to make a dramatic difference. We also believe that through our efforts we will encourage Residents and Businesses in the Borough to find out what they can do to reduce further their negative impact on the Environment.

We believe the investment and costs associated with the introduction will be at least cost neutral over the first three years. We are confident that there will actually be a more optimistic outcome as regards savings and a greater effect in terms of the potential reduction of our negative impact on the Environment.

Cllr. Ken Smith, Conservative Spokesman said “We know that while people will debate what levels of threat we face from climate change, it is clear we all have to become more aware of the effects we ourselves have on our environment. Reducing the impact and the costs of energy use is something we can all agree on. Our proposal is one clear way for the Council to step up to the table and give leadership to our residents and the businesses operating in the Royal Borough of Kingston.

We will involve everyone who works at the Council and everyone we work with in delivering services to our Residents. It will bring all that we do under a spotlight and help bring the need to change in the way we work into the open. We believe this proposal will also complement the wider need for change in the corporate culture of the Council. This innovation will bring together all organisations interested in Climate Change and the Environment in Kingston and enable us to unite and work together in making a difference that will benefit our Borough and its people for generations”

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Richmond Park said “This is a hugely important initiative. Without proper information and real transparency, we won’t be able to tackle climate change. The right approach is one that combines saving money with saving energy. It’s a win-win situation.”

Kingston, worth fighting for!

The question was raised by Conservative Councillor Nick Kilby who had hoped Council officers might’ve been instructed by the Lib Dem Administration to prepare a budget for next year that would allow the Council to approve a 0% increase. In reply, Cllr Osborne retorted ‘No’. He also admitted that he would find it very hard to do so without impacting on services, and that he was unwilling to do so simply to make a ‘political point’.

Cllr Kilby, who feels that Kingston residents deserve better after years of having to pay the highest Council Tax in London, added ‘If the One Council programme had been better managed by the Lib Dems, we would have already had £2 million saved to fund a 0% increase. More Lib Dem incompetence equals another lost opportunity for our residents’.