Bexley Conservatives

Spring 2012

Welcome to the Bexley Conservatives website. 2012 has been a busy year so far - our first achievement was to freeze your council tax bill for a further year, as promised. This is something that benefits every resident in the borough, and while petrol prices or energy bills are rocketing we have taken the decisions to ensure your taxes will not be increasing. Our budget has also restored Bexley's position as having the second lowest average rate of council tax in Outer London.

We have also made good progress on our Strategy 2014 savings programme, which we have implemented to ensure your council services are protected from the largest spending reductions to local government since the Second World War. Unlike neighbouring councils, our strategy does not close any libraries, does not remove care and support for those most in need in the borough, does not reduce waste collections and does not cut the budgets for repairing roads and pavements.

These core council services are the ones you have told us you wanted to see protected from the cuts - we have listened to you and done just that. Uniquely we published all our spending reductions in full, line by line, for everyone to see and comment on, and of the people who took the time to read the proposals, 95% backed our strategy of protecting core services and freezing council tax.

Bexley residents have also overwhelmingly re-elected Boris Johnson as Mayor of London, and re-elected James Cleverly as Bexley's representative on the London Assembly, with Bexley's Cllr Gareth Bacon joining him for a second term. Boris's key message of freezing council tax was key to this victory, and having spoken with many residents this year, it is clear that people welcome Boris's decisions to freeze his share of the council tax, just as they welcome our decisions to freeze our share of council tax.

Coming up in the summer we have the Queen's Jubliee celebrations, with many street parties being planned by residents, creating a great community sprit and then we welcome the Olympic Torch to the Borough, with a huge, event on 22nd July at Danson Park.We are also delivering on our 2010 election manifesto, with many of our pledges now delivered, or well on target. As an example, our pledge to modernise our CCTV network and introduce new cameras for Crayford and Bexley Village were all delivered well ahead of schedule, which has been good news for residents and bad news for criminals, with 104 arrests being made as a result of CCTV camera evidence between January and March.Best wishes,

Cllr Teresa O'Neill