Ric Metcalfe

By Ric Metcalfe City of Lincoln Council Leader

The Tory euphoria since last week’s elections might lead you to think that they had won the general election by a great landslide. In fact they have a small 12 seat overall majority following a net gain of just 24 seats and a 36.9% share of the vote (about 25% of the total electorate) representing an increase of only 0.8% increase in their share of the popular vote compared with 2010.

This is not the resounding vote of confidence being claimed by some.

The Labour Party had a net loss of 26 seats and a 30.4% share of the vote but increased their share of the popular vote by 1.5% compared with 2010. A very disappointing result for Labour.

The reasons for the Labour Party’s poor performance are not hard to see. Firstly, the rise of Scottish nationalism and the catastrophic loss of nearly 50 seats held by Labour in Scotland, combined with the success the Tories had during the campaign of invoking fear of a minority Labour government being unduly beholden to the SNP in the British parliament.

Secondly, the collapse of support for the Liberal Democrats, with most of their seats going back to the Tories who ruthlessly targeted Liberal Democrat seats.

Thirdly, the Tories successful campaign to misrepresent Labour’s record in office prior to 2010 and denigrate Ed Miliband with a series of highly personalised attacks probably unprecedented in British political history.

Public memory tends to be relatively short, which may explain, rather surprisingly, that enough of the electorate have placed their trust in the Tories again.

In the 2010 election, David Cameron made six key promises, including “no cuts to front line services”, “no plans to raise VAT”, “no means testing of child benefit”, “no more top down re-organisations of the NHS”, “no plans to abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance”, and “full backing for Sure Start”. None of these promises were kept.

Having said all of that, Labour this time round was clearly not sufficiently effective in getting its positive messages across to the electorate about a credible alternative economic strategy, the case for a fairer Britain and a strong public sector to address market failure, and its plans to provide decent well paid and secure employment and affordable homes.

There was some cheer for Labour in the local elections held on the same day. We maintained our 27 to 6 majority of city council seats over the Conservatives. We think this is because we are seen as a competent and trustworthy council by our local electorate, with the right priorities for improving the life of people in Lincoln.

Councillor Martin Hill, leader of the county council, is right about one thing which is that local government has taken a disproportionate share of the reductions in public spending, and there will be more to come when Osborne introduces another “emergency budget” in the next few weeks.

Where Councillor Hill and I part company is in his willingness to countenance further reductions in council spending, when the county council has already sought to savage our library service and has now put out all heritage and cultural services including Lincoln Castle, recently refurbished at public expense, to the private sector.

Of course local councils should continue to become more efficient, we have been doing this for many years under successive governments, but there is a limit. People will need their local council, more than ever in hard times, and these are hard times for many people, however much the Tories may try to persuade you otherwise.

You will hear in the next few months some wildly exaggerated claims about the savings that would result from doing away with all the district councils in Lincolnshire and replacing them with one unitary county council.

I suggest the county council stops wasting public money in preparing the case for this preposterous suggestion because neither democratically elected district councils in Lincolnshire will support it and more importantly nor will their electors.

Councillor Ric Metcalfe is the Labour Leader of the City of Lincoln Council.

By Ric Metcalfe City of Lincoln Council Leader

Looking back on 2014 there is a story of significant achievement and continued ambition for Lincoln by the city council. One of our key aims is going for growth, essential to secure the future of our city. We have made real progress this year – launching a new growth strategy supported by leading stakeholders from across the city.

Our work supporting young people through apprenticeships is second to none – nearly 200 youngsters completed apprenticeships last year, supported by out Work Based Learning team, and 97 per cent of these went on to get a job in the city.

We are also making good progress with the local plan for Central Lincolnshire, a planning framework vital to make sure we get the right amount of growth in the right places over the next 20 years.

Sustainable urban extensions will make a major contribution to delivering the growth envisaged by the plan and so we are continuing to work towards providing 2,700 new homes, along with new infrastructure and attractive open space in the Western Growth Corridor. There will also be space for businesses, creating more employment opportunities and attracting vital investment into Lincoln.

Along with growth, helping the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society remains a top priority for the council.

Our Community Leadership Scrutiny Committee has played an important role this year highlighting the nature and extent of poverty in Lincoln. This doesn’t just affect those who are unemployed, but there is also a huge issue with in-work poverty as a result of under-employment and low pay.

The council is already paying the living wage and we are beginning work on a campaign for the New Year to encourage all other employers in the city to do the same with the aim of making Lincoln a poverty-free zone.

We recently began building council houses again for the first time in 20 years, and in 2014 completed another five new homes in Stapleford Avenue. This year we committed £15 million to create 150 new houses across the city, and that’s just the start.

In the meantime, our neighbourhood teams continue to remain active and in supporting people living in some of our most disadvantaged communities, where we know their work is highly valued by local people.

We’ve also continued to carry out some excellent work bringing communities together in areas with high migrant communities and student populations. The number of houses in multiple occupation has been raised as an issue and the council has listened to residents and will be agreeing a course of action by the end of the year.

Reducing our carbon-footprint is also very important, and this year we’ve installed a new biomass boiler at Shuttleworth House, which provides an added bonus of cheaper fuel for tenants.

It’s a balancing act to protect Lincoln’s heritage and character while securing its future, but this year we’ve strived to do this through restoring Newport Arch – the only remaining Roman arch in the country that traffic can pass underneath – while creating a new cemetery at Long Leys Road that will support the burial needs of the city for the next 30 to 50 years.

We’ve also completed the rebuilding of the iconic White Bridge in Hartsholme Park, one of the city’s most popular green spaces. We’re proud to say both Hartsholme and the Arboretum were awarded Green Flag status once again in the summer, recognising the quality of open space in Lincoln.

In the not too distant future we hope to see Boultham Park achieve Green Flag status too, and work continues to progress on the £3.7 million five-year restoration of this historic 50-acre park. Led by ourselves and the charity Linkage, the project is being funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Parks for People initiative, with volunteers working hard to raise the remaining £250,000 needed.

It’s important to remember the growing popularity of Lincoln Christmas Market. This is a huge event for the city, bringing in around £12 million to the local economy every year and putting Lincoln on the map. It was the first traditional German Christmas market in the UK and has become a great success. We have already had some excellent feedback following this year’s event.

Against all of these considerable achievements we have not neglected our pursuit of attaining greater fitness for purpose as an organisation. At a time of continual budget cuts we continue to look for savings that will not affect frontline services, although this is becoming increasingly difficult.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our elected members and staff for their hard work this year. Local councils are often denigrated by the press and public, but we believe local government is very much alive and serving the public well in Lincoln.

As ever, I would also like to thank our residents and businesses for their support as we strive to maintain and improve Lincoln as a world class small city that we can all feel rightly proud of.

Councillor Ric Metcalfe is the Labour Leader of the City of Lincoln Council.