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Ways we can make Lewisham a better place to live, work and learn
What follows are some of the key proposals I will work on as your mayor. They are intended to flesh out some of the approaches I have described in the section "Statement of Intent". Some of these are firm and will be acted on quickly while others are ideas on which I will want to consult widely with you before taking action.
Giving you a greater voice
I am determined to give you, the people who know best what makes a difference to your family, your street, your neighbourhood, more power and influence over those decisions. What follows are just some of the ideas I have for how we can do this but I will be asking you for your ideas too!
· Devolving assets and resources to the community. Fund development of the skills needed to run things with support for time banks and other local groups.
· Widening the use of schools and community centres by local residents.
· Working towards everyone having free access to the internet by providing a borough-wide network. Extend use in libraries, with free training particularly for older people and others without previous experience.
· Helping increase the resources available to individuals and families through more support for benefit take-up campaigns and credit unions.
· Ensuring wide involvement - locally through community outreach and research, not just public meetings - before key decisions are made.
· Building on existing local area action plans, establishing priorities and schemes - to be consulted on locally over when and how they're to be implemented.
A safer Lewisham
We all want to feel safe and secure - we do not want our families to walk in fear and neither do we want to have to live with the consequences of other people's thoughtless actions that litter our streets. To make our borough a safer place I will:-
· Work to ensure residents feel secure for the whole of their journey through the borough -especially at night between bus stops, train stations and their homes.
· Improve enforcement of issues such as planning, speeding, graffiti and in particular dumping and fly-tipping by improving the flow of information between the council, police and our other partners.
· Improve the Street Wardens service by introducing a central call point, extending the hours for which they are available and having them even more locally focused.
· Improve the links between Safer Neighbourhood Teams and the Street Wardens, so they can provide them with leadership and supervision.
· Work to establish a non-emergency number for a wide range of issues staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
A greener Lewisham
We all want our borough to be a clean, green and healthy place to live and we increasingly understand that what each of us does individually can make a difference to the future of our planet and the legacy we leave to future generations. I will do the following to help you achieve this:
· Invest in our Parks and open spaces and bring even more of them up to the Green Flag standard.
· Strengthen the links between the different parts of the council and our partners in the community, like the Police, to improve the reporting of problems and ensure they are dealt with even more quickly in the future.
· Over the next four years our target should be to have at least 1000 renewable energy devices installed in homes across the borough producing, green, sustainable energy.
· Build further on our recycling service. There will be increased investment directly in the service and in promoting it to residents.
· The phased introduction of recycling wheelie bins will continue and a free green bag garden and food waste scheme introduced. I will also offer more support to local business that want to recycle their waste.
Please now go to Part 2 which sets out ideas about how we can deliver for our young people, build a better Lewisham and make it Healthy, Active and Creative | |
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