Dorset Labour Parties
A manifesto for the Dorset Council election 2024
The following document is a manifesto for the 2024 Dorset Council Elections.
In the absence of an official Local Government Committee (LGC) for Dorset, it has been created in a way that broadly reflects a process that would have been followed by the LGC.
The manifesto has been created over a seven month period through a series of consultations with Dorset’s only Labour Councillor (Cllr Paul Kimber), the Dorset branch of Labour Unions, and all Dorset CLPs.
It is not intended for this document to be published, rather to be used as a resource for Dorset CLPs to assist them in creating campaign materials for the forthcoming elections.
SECTIONS
A. Local economy and the cost-of-living crisis
B. Homes and housing
C. Healthy, safe and sustainable communities
D. Improving education and supporting children and young people
E. Democracy and decision-making
A. Local economy and the cost-of-living crisis
For decades Tory-led Councils have been ineffective in addressing economic decline in Dorset, creating pockets of deprivation that have only deepened and widened with fewer job opportunities and shrinking real terms wages, while housing, transportation and living costs have all ballooned.
There are parts of Dorset which have some of the highest child poverty levels in the country (up to 40% compared to 29% nationally). These areas will be a particular focus for investment
Labour will
1. Create a Cost-of-Living Committee for Dorset that will: a. Commission a review of the impacts of the economic and social crisis on Dorset. b. Commission a poverty review for Dorset’s most deprived communities. c. Be responsible for ensuring that the recommendations of these reviews are executed.
2. Ensure that Dorset Council is an accredited living wage employer that pays the real living wage, opposes the use of zero-hours contracts, and only enters into contracts with suppliers that adopt the same approach.
3. Work with local trade unions to establish a programme of employment rights workshops at schools and colleges in Dorset.
4. Support the creation of a “strategy for high streets” in line with that proposed by USDAW, which can regenerate and revitalise local economies and improve retail opportunities.
5. Support innovative community and business led initiatives that can assist the Council in the delivery of its strategic aims and statutory obligations, e.g. community land trusts that deliver good quality housing to meets local needs, or renewable energy schemes that bring good, local jobs and other community benefits.
6. Review park and ride provision and car park charges to encourage tourism and support town centres.
B. Homes and housing
There is a housing emergency in Dorset caused by a failure of local housing policy for the last 35 years. Dorset has around 4,500 households on the housing register, and over 300 households in temporary accommodation. 40% of Dorset wages are low wages. In the Dorset Council and BCP area, over 5,000 homes are second homes, holiday lets, or just left empty. The answer to this is not to turn the situation into a ‘cash cow’ for the Council by simply introducing a Council tax premium on second homes, but to find ways to discourage it. House prices are 10-12 times a typical salary for the area, meaning many people here can’t afford to buy their own home. Families and young people feel they have to move away from the communities they grew up in to find somewhere they can afford to live.
So called ‘affordable housing’ is nothing of the sort because rent prices are tied to house prices and demand for rental home greatly outstrips supply. The Government definition of ‘affordable’ is ‘80% of the market rent’, while local housing allowance is set by averaging the lowest third of local rents. This means that most actual rents are much higher than housing allowance and tenants with low incomes have to find the difference. Housing inequality is changing the demographic make-up of Dorset and damaging the viability of local services and businesses. At current rates we can expect well over half of the population to be over 65 within the next 10-20 years.
Labour will:
1. Recognize that good housing is a universal right and produce the new housing strategy within that context.
2. Work with the incoming Labour Government to enable Dorset Council to build more council homes through the removal of local authority caps on ‘borrow to build’ and by calling for more grant funding.
3. Identify more low-cost public land that could be developed for 100% social rent and increase the proportion of new homes for social rent for local residents.
4. Support community-led and co-operative housing programmes where they have demonstrated that they will provide the same proportion of housing to those in most need.
5. Work with the incoming Labour Government to strengthen restraints and restrictions on second homes and Airbnb where local housing need has not been met.
6. Acknowledge that the private rented sector currently provides much of the non-owner-occupied housing in Dorset and work with the local branch of the National Residential Landlords Association towards raising standards in the private rented sector.
7. Work with the incoming Labour Government to find ways to ensure that managing agents can be held responsible for the quality of the rental housing on their books.
8. Consult on introducing a new Tenants’ Charter to raise awareness of tenants’ rights and encourage the formation of Tenants’ Associations.
9. Introduce a truly accessible housing advisory service that proactively helps people in need find homes.
10. Work with the incoming Labour Government and the Local Government Association to ensure that a. the Local Housing Allowance more accurately reflects the real cost of renting b. definitions of ‘affordability’ are tied to local wages rather than local house values.
11. Encourage the use of modern building techniques like modular housing to scale up housebuilding to the numbers needed.
12. Ensure that all new council homes and those being delivered in partnership with housing associations are not only energy efficient, but also energy generating and future proofed with solar panels, heat pumps, and electric car charging points fitted as standard.
13. Acknowledge the current reliance on the private rented sector to provide good quality housing in Dorset and work with the incoming Labour Government to legislate for the “Decent Homes Standard” as baseline of quality.
14. Adopt the Unite Construction Charter committing Dorset Council to enter in responsible procurement agreements for construction projects whilst working with trade unions to achieve the highest standards in respect of: direct employment status; health and safety; standard of work; apprenticeship training; and the implementation of appropriate nationally agreed terms and conditions of employment.
15. Commission a study to identify how owner occupiers in Dorset can meet the “Decent Homes Standards”, acknowledging that many homeowners lack the means to upgrade or repair their own homes.
16. Lobby government for start-up funding to encourage councils to create wholly-owned council build operations to undertake (especially small scale) housing development and assist with housing repairs, that will provide a public sector comparator for private sector housing costs.
17. Review the Council’s homelessness policies and homeless and housing advice service to ensure that they provide fair, humane and supportive practices that consider the quality and location of temporary accommodation.
C. Healthy, safe, and sustainable communities
In the Dorset Council area around one third of our population is already over 65. One in five of Dorset’s population consider that they have a long-term health problem or disability, and during the course of a year, one in four of us will experience some form of mental health condition. With so much natural beauty on our doorsteps, Dorset is perfectly equipped with many environmental assets that enhance our mental and physical wellbeing. However, Tory cuts and lack of investment in infrastructure leave people in Dorset unable to access the services they need. GPs are overstretched and subject to deteriorating working conditions. Under the Tories, raw sewage is being pumped 824 times a day into British waters. In the one year alone (2020), Wessex Water discharged untreated sewage to enter our rivers on 28,164 occasions. A Labour Council will protect our environmental heritage for future generations, whilst making our communities safe and healthy places to live
Labour will:
1. Adopt a ‘Motion for the Ocean’ to recognise the need for ocean recovery to meet our net zero carbon targets, whilst also recognising that inland communities also have an important role to play in ocean recovery through acting as the custodians of the rivers, waterways and tributaries that run through our Towns and villages on their way to the sea.
2. Ensure that all Blue Flag sites in Dorset attain and maintain the “Excellent” standard of bathing water, and campaign for Blue Flag standards to be extended to cover beach quality.
3. Ensure that the Council uses all its regulatory, environmental health and public health powers to monitor, enforce and prosecute pollution by locally operating water companies.
4. Ensure that any local organisations, particularly agricultural, that could produce contaminated water have a proper drainage system and possess the correct licences for their operation.
5. Press for comprehensive monitoring of beaches and the posting of water quality results online and at the beach. Where water is no longer safe to swim in, the council will promptly provide public information and proper signage.
6. Empower a nature led approach as nature has a huge potential to relieve the pressure on sewage systems if enabled to do so.
7. Support community owned renewable energy initiatives that bring good jobs to our communities, lower energy prices, and reduced carbon emissions.
8. Reinstitute the Port Heath Committee regarding ships water quality.
9. Fight for the protection of acute hospital services and the retention of A&E, maternity and paediatric services at Poole; the retention of maternity and paediatric services at Dorset County; the retention of Community Hospital provision and beds across the local authority area; and the retention of GP and NHS dental surgeries, particularly in rural areas where there are no accessible alternatives.
10. Work with the incoming Labour Government to ensure that adequate provision of GPs and surgeries exists to meet the needs of growing populations.
11. Improve access to GP appointments by exercising the powers of the Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee to insist that the provisions of the Equality Act are upheld by making all forms of access to appointments equally available and advertised. This is particularly important in rural communities with poorer mobile and broadband coverage, and for patients with low digital literacy, where online appointments have been forced on them and counter appointments and telephone bookings actively resisted.
12. Adopt Unison’s Ethical Care Charter, protecting the rights of residents as well as those that care for them.
13. Unlock the power of investment in social care as both a matter of social justice and a strategic imperative for a more secure and resilient economy by adopting the recommendations of the Future Social Care Coalition report. - Caronomics,
14. Put the safety of our communities first by consulting blue light services when making decisions about our transport infrastructure, or by protecting vulnerable hospitality workers by committing to making free transport home for workers a prerequisite of all new liquor licenses.
15. Support the keeping of a guard on all trains that serve our stations and work with the Local Government Association to press rail operators to remove any plans to reduce this provision.
16. Designate and protect bus routes of critical community value, including those that serve local hospitals and schools, and work towards ensuring that no major changes to rail or bus services are implemented without first seeking the opinion and consent of passengers affected by any proposed changes.
17. Commission a root and branch review into technological barriers to public services from car parks to GP appointments, acknowledging that IT literacy can create inequalities within our communities.
D. Improving education and supporting children and young people
The Tory Government has interfered with the education system by introducing a business model into it and by reducing the power of local councils to intervene to raise standards. They have also abandoned the Sure Start Schemes set up by Labour nationally to to support parents, deliver high quality child care and “levelling up” opportunities. Young people now feel under tremendous pressure and suffer greater levels of stress and anxiety than previous generations. This has worsened since Covid 19.
Labour will:
1. Work with early years providers and others to promote opportunities for greater links between the generations, e.g. by locating nurseries in new extra care housing schemes for older people.
2. Review every aspect of schooling from nursery provision, breakfast clubs to longer school days, timing of school holidays, the cost of school uniforms and what additional support might be needed for parents who are working.
3. Review pre-school provision, recognising that for many families work is not possible without access to childcare.
4. Pilot a limited number of Sure Start schemes, monitoring outputs over time to show that the cost of parental and early years support is more than offset by reduced costs for school exclusion units, extra teacher support, and fewer instances of anti-social behaviour.
5. Provide support to early years providers for additional services to both pre- school children, and their parents, in areas designated as highest risk of deprivation as measured by Pupil Premium.
6. Look at innovative ways in which youth services can be improved to meet the needs of 21st Century young people and commit to opening/re-opening of youth clubs under local authority control.
7. Work with school admissions authorities to agree criteria which lead to a more balanced pupil intake with schools having a much wider ability range of children.
8. Work with schools to develop a protocol for situations where a school has to exclude a pupil but retains responsibility for finding a better suited school place and for monitoring the child’s progress there.
9. Improve the support to schools to assist them in dealing with pupils at risk of permanent exclusion.
10. Monitor and rigorously scrutinise the practice of ‘off-rolling’ and provide appropriate support to parents that have no other option than to home school their children.
11. Work with local schools and a wide range of criminal justice agencies to promote restorative practice models to minimise avoidable exclusions and absences from schools and colleges.
12. Encourage schools to share their facilities (where they do not already) for local communities to use to come together and also decrease social isolation.
13. Support post 16 students with transport to FE education and training and free transport for young people.
14. Campaign for schools to be brought back under local authority control.
E. Democracy and decision-making
For decades, Tory-led councils in Dorset have worked on a cabinet basis. This means a small handful of Conservative Councillors have been able to put their own interests first, and democracy and the interests of ordinary people last, by making important decisions that affect all our lives behind closed doors. The establishment of a unitary Dorset Council in 2019, replacing district and borough councils, has led to a widening of this democratic deficit for Dorset residents. Decisions are now made even more remotely and significant public resources have been stripped from local communities. This is why people in Dorset are finding it more difficult to access public services and believe they go unheard by those who hold elected office
Labour will:
1. Embrace the principles of transparency and public accountability.
2. Oppose the principle of a cabinet structure that puts too much power in the hands of a self-interested few.
3. Work with other political parties locally to ensure that everyone’s views are voiced during the decision-making process.
4. Raise awareness of how local democracy works and how the public can be involved in the democratic decision-making process.
5. Work closely with town and parish councils to ensure that local needs are fully understood.
6. Support partnership working between town councils and neighbouring parishes.
Establish Community Panels across the area to provide feedback on Dorset Council services.
Guarantee that every Labour Councillor will hold regular surgeries, and pledge to answer constituents’ queries within a set time limit.
Introduce “Ward Forums”, arranged by ward Councillors to provide a platform for residents to talk about issues affecting their local area and connect with Councillors on the issues most important to them.
Campaign for some local services to be delegated back to town and parish councils, giving them both the responsibilities and the necessary finance to deliver them.
Resist the further erosion of local democracy by opposing plans for ‘false devolution’.