04 May 2023
It’s time to have your say… District council elections are taking place everywhere today apart from in the wards of Colney Heath and Marshalswick West.
Parish and town council elections will also be taking place, and referenda on neighbourhood planning will be held in the areas of Redbourn and Wheathampstead.
We asked each of the major parties to explain why they deserved your support…
Green Party: ‘We are the only opposition in St Albans city’
St Albans District Green Party is optimistic about increasing its share of councillors at St Albans district council at these local elections.
As well as securing Cllr Simon Grover’s fourth re-election in a row in St Peter’s ward, they’re focusing on Clarence ward, where Green campaigner Matt Fisher came within 21 votes of winning last year.
Greens are stressing that the Lib Dems now hold all but one seat in the city of St Albans (and 90% of them in the district) and that’s not healthy for democracy.
Matt Fisher commented: “Greens are the only opposition in St Albans city: if you think the council should have a mixture of party representation, then Green is the only sensible vote for you here.”
Simon Grover said: “The figures from our canvassing are looking extremely promising for me and Matt, but both contests are likely to be close. The good news is the message is very simple: Conservatives and Labour have no chance in Clarence and St Peter’s, so you’re either voting for a one-party state or a Green councillor who will bring some scrutiny and openness.”
Cllr Grover recently won praise from residents when he helped reverse a proposal by the Lib Dem Council to slash funding to the popular Abbey View athletics centre. Dozens of angry athletes attended a tense council committee meeting about the cuts, applauding Simon’s forceful speech in which he told the committee to “do your job and kick out this proposal”.
Lib Dem councillors initially rejected appeals from Simon and residents, but as protest continued they reversed the cut, meaning Abbey View is safe for this year at least.
St Albans Greens outline their priorities for the district as:
- A society that puts people first and works for the common good
- A planet protected from climate change now and in the future
- An economy that gives everyone their fair share
- Affordable and secure homes for all
- A public transport system that puts passengers first
- Sustainable local communities
- Open and accountable decision-making
The party points at its successful local policies as examples of what is possible, including getting hundreds of solar panels put on leisure centres, saving free disabled parking at the hospital and ending secrecy at the council by making all meetings public by default. Greens have recently campaigned on the River Ver, appealing to Affinity Water to stop abstracting water that leads to the river running dry, with a 1000-signature petition. They also expanded the farmers market, improved council support for local businesses, and launched the council’s programme to help Syrian refugees.
Across England and Wales, the Green Party has seen big increases in local councillors at recent elections, with over 550 councillors currently serving. The party is expecting to make further significant gains on 4 May.
Conservative Group: ‘Help build a strong opposition to stand up for St Albans district’
For the past four years the district council has been run by the Liberal Democrats and we are all paying for their mismanagement.
Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on failed and over-budget projects, the latest being over £700,000 on the Harpenden Public Halls. The St Albans market is a shadow of its former self and runs at a loss. Even the 2020/21 accounts have not been approved by the auditors yet.
The administration is predicting a loss of £2.3 million for 2023/4. As a result they are hiking Council Tax by the maximum allowed; green bin charges are going up 33%; parking charges are going up by more than inflation and senior parking passes are increasing too. Vital services we rely on are being cut – including bus subsidies, community grants for charities and street cleaning.
But despite all of that, the Lib Dems have found the money to give councillors a 4.04% pay rise. We think that you want to see strong public services and lower charges, not better paid councillors.
The district faces a major threat to its Green Belt due to the lack of an up-to-date Local Plan which would include areas for future housing development. The existing plan is dated 1994 (the second oldest in the country) and is grossly out of date.
As a result we are vulnerable to the Planning Inspectorate deciding that the demand for housing overrides the protection of the Green Belt.
Already two applications near Chiswell Green are subject to Public Inquiry; several others totalling thousands of houses are in the pipeline.
If such applications are approved by the Inspectorate, there will be no contributions to the necessary infrastructure (roads, schools etc.) and the council may have to pay the costs of the public inquiries or appeals.
The Lib Dems have had four years to progress a Local Plan and failed, they are now predicting completion by 2025 by which time it may be too late. The Plan needs to be delivered as soon as possible.
Since last May the Liberal Democrats have held 90% of the seats on our district council – we are close to a one-party state.
They refuse to accept accountability for their actions, all failings are somebody else’s fault: favourites are the county council or that the Government will not give them more money.
Because only a third of council seats are up for election that means that they will still run the council after May.
But we do need a strong opposition – to hold them to the promises that they have made to residents.
Over the past year, the Conservative Group has delivered that opposition winning concessions on a range of issues from planning to car parking charges.
Now we need your support – and your vote – to grow our opposition group so we can hold the Liberal Democrats to account on your behalf.
Liberal Democrats: ‘We still have a journey to make’
A party in administration basically has to stand on its record and set out a vision to keep our area moving forward. And we are proud to do so.
Our principal focus is always the environment. We managed to put the council at the top of the national league on recycling. We started 100 initiatives aimed at making the district net zero by 2030. We launched the Solar Together scheme to make it easier for residents to access solar panels.
We have also delivered on our promise to invest in the local community, opening the Cottonmill Community and Cycling Centre while completing leisure facilities in Harpenden.
And we won more than £1 million from the Arts Council for our historic museums. The energy increases caused by Putin’s war coupled with the Government’s disastrous mini-budget, meant that keeping our swimming pools going was a massive challenge. But we managed it.
We are also delivering on social and affordable homes: we are building new homes around the district, most recently in the city centre. And we have just won a staggering £8.5 million in grants to make council homes more energy efficient and reduce bills. This is the largest grant awarded to any council of our size and 900 local homes will benefit.
We are also a campaigning council. We are currently pressing the government to get rid of its top-down housing targets: we want action not weasel words from government ministers on this.
And we continue to put pressure on the Government to remove the cap on planning fees which currently means that developers are being subsidised by council taxpayers in St Albans district to the tune of £3 million a year.
Our objectives for the coming year are to build on our track record, especially on climate change and the environment where we act rather than just talk. But we also want to create a cultural strategy so that we develop, with public support, a blueprint for what we want to see happening in this district and where.
We already have excellent cultural assets: but why is St Albans not known for its cultural, artistic and literary festivals?
We will also continue to reform the performance of the council, making services quick and easy for residents to access. The council has come a long way in four years but still has a journey to make.
And we will forge ahead with the next stage of formal consultations on the local development plan, a key tool for protecting us from overdevelopment and for shaping our future.
Looking to the future, there are some obvious challenges. Government financial restrictions continue to be a worry: the toxic combination of grant cuts, restrictions in council tax increases, the failure to support councils over energy costs and the problems with planning fees have meant that the council has been forced to raise charges and fees. We don’t want to. It shouldn’t be necessary. But the Government requires it.
Labour Party: ‘Putting people and businesses first’
Labour has a plan for St Albans, Harpenden and the villages because they deserve better than an unelectable Tory party and the stale and out-of-touch Liberal Democrat administration.
Having had full control of St Albans District Council since 2019, it’s worth asking what the Liberal Democrats have achieved for its residents?
Action on housing? Don’t make anyone living in social housing, attempting to get on the housing ladder or living next to a dodgy development laugh. Our social housing remains in dire condition, with complaints about rats and damp so common that they paint a borderline Dickensian picture, for those the council have a duty of care over. Affordable housing is equally elusive, with house prices and rents skyrocketing, a Local Plan that delivers affordable housing stock, whilst preventing dodgy developments, is plainly a priority.
Unless your name is Chris White.
Improving council services? Whacking residents with parking charges in Westminster lodge, putting fees on museums, declaring war on the city’s market traders, failing to report the record numbers of pot holes to HCC and creating endless traffic jams with their pedestrianisation experiments is a brief (but not exclusive) summary of the Lib Dem record.
The Climate Emergency?
Their action on reducing carbon emissions is plainly not rated by the electorate, so much so that in Cllr White’s own ward (Clarence) the Green vote has surged to the point that they will almost certainly knock off White at the next election.
Tax? Since coming to power, the Liberal Democrats have charged the average household a total of £444 extra in Council Tax, for the privilege of the above calamities.
No one can doubt the potency of the Liberal political machine, but their determination to stuff a quarter million leaflets yearly into residents’ doors has made ‘the permanent campaign’ the raison d’être of the party. No self respecting political party would regard this as an achievement.
On each of those issues Labour offers a strong progressive alternative:
• We would deliver a resident led Local Plan within six months of coming to power, aiming to make St Albans first in Hertfordshire for affordable housing.
• We will introduce regular ‘inspection tours’ of social housing, led by councillors, to identify faults – a new council cfficer will be recruited to co-ordinate repairs.
• Landlords who fail to abide by their obligations to their tenants will be pursued, with high fines issued, financing further quality control checks of rented accommodation.
• The short sighted decision to impose parking charges in Westminster Lodge will reduce footfall in the city centre just when businesses need it most – Labour will repeal it on Day One.
• St Albans heritage belongs to all its residents – not just those in a strong financial position, we’ll repeal the disgraceful ‘History Tax’ in our museums.
• The present cost of living crisis makes high council tax rises unaffordable for so many residents, therefore we will freeze council tax for the financial year 2023/24, financed by the council’s existing reserves.
With the Conservatives no longer competitive in St Albans, residents have a genuine choice, between a stale Liberal Democrat administration which is no longer fit for purpose, or a genuinely progressive Labour team which will always put people and businesses in St Albans first.
