In just under four months’ time, the people of Reading will once again be asked to make the vital choice of who should run Reading Borough Council.
Every election is important but this May, the decision by Reading’s voters will be even more critical than usual as these will be “all-out” elections – the type normally only held every four years – with all of the Council’s seats coming up for election at the same time.
It means Reading Borough will have a completely new map of 16 wards and two extra councillors, bringing the total to 48.
Crucially, though – after more than a decade of poor Labour leadership which has let Reading down – it also means our residents have their best opportunity in years to vote out the current Labour administration and elect, instead, a Conservative Council that will begin to rectify the failures of Labour; a Conservative Council that will work tirelessly to make a real and positive change for our town’s future.
From our parks and green spaces to our buses and bins, from our roads to our planning applications, local councillors look after the things that matter most in our day-to-day lives. Councillors also decide how much Council Tax we all have to pay for our public services and that’s why the party in charge of Reading Borough Council matters.
For too long, we have been asked by Labour to pay ever increasing Council Tax rates – currently the highest in Berkshire – and yet for several years the Labour administration hasn’t even been able to publish the Council’s own accounts correctly on time, an ongoing fiasco that has damaged Reading’s reputation and cost us more than a million pounds in extra auditing fees alone.
That’s money that should have been spent on improving Reading’s public services rather than being wasted because of Labour’s lack of strong financial controls.
Where we can agree with Labour that a policy is right for Reading, we have been happy to work with Labour, but where we feel things need to be improved for the benefit of the town’s hard-pressed council tax-payers we will always challenge Labour and hold their decisions to account.
Reading’s Conservatives, for example, want to see Reading’s civic, cultural and economic status rightly recognised by our wonderful town soon becoming a City and that’s why we fully support the Council’s renewed bid to win the prestigious title as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Year.
We also fully back the Council’s ongoing efforts to secure a viable future for Reading Gaol as a nationally significant arts hub, one that will become a creative jewel in the cultural crown of Reading and beyond.
So, ahead of May, we will be fielding a full slate of Conservative candidates across Reading, all of whom will be campaigning hard to address every one of our town’s issues where we feel things can and should be done better.
Along with the stronger financial controls needed for RBC, we will be arguing for major improvements to Reading’s transport links and infrastructure to reduce our endemic road congestion and pollution levels and to tackle the dangerous menace of potholes. We will continue to support the need for a third Reading bridge.
To protect our environment, we will oppose unsustainable over-development wherever it may be proposed, with Conservative Councillors thoroughly scrutinising all planning applications with an open mind, fully listening to the views of residents, especially around contentious proposals such as those over the future of Reading Golf Club’s former site and the BBC’s former home at Caversham Park.
In power, we would scrap garden waste bin charges and intensify efforts to ensure our open spaces are protected from illegal traveller incursions.
We will be campaigning to end the scourge of deprivation by making sure no child in our town goes hungry and that all have a great education at a local school.
We will be working closely with Thames Valley Police and campaign groups to tackle the ongoing threat posed by rising knife crime.
This May, the people of Reading have their best chance in years to make a positive, long-lasting and fundamentally better change to the way Reading is run by voting Conservative.
We will be fighting hard to earn their trust and every vote.
Councillor Clarence Mitchell, Peppard Ward and Conservative Party Finance Spokesperson, Reading Borough Council
