A column from Swindon Labour Leader Jim Robbins.
I really want to thank all of the Swindon voters who supported the Labour Party at the local elections.
It was great to have such a positive set of results and amazing to win so many seats, especially the ones we won in areas where we don’t usually win such as Haydon Wick, Priory Vale and St Margaret & South Marston ward.
The results clearly showed our positive message for Swindon is gaining ground, as well as highlighting the concern people have around the Conservative’s Cost-of-Living crisis which is really impacting people and their family finances.
Following the elections, I was delighted to be elected as the Leader of the Labour Group, and I’m determined to build on the excellent results of my predecessor Cllr Jim Grant.
I’m planning to make the argument to Swindon residents that the Labour Group are an administration in waiting, and that we are ready to take control of the council and deliver the changes that Swindon needs to thrive.
We know that local authority funding has taken a battering during the years of austerity, and we aren’t going to make promises to you that we can’t keep. What we will do is have a relentless focus on delivering the core council services as well as we can, with a focus on doing things once and doing them right, whether it is collecting your bins, resurfacing roads to get rid of potholes, doing repairs on council housing, looking after our elderly residents or fixing a streetlight.
Alongside this, we will be looking to learn from the best ideas from other councils around the world, such as using the successful model developed in Cleveland in the US and Preston in the UK, to prioritise local spend through procurement and keep as much money as possible circulating in the Swindon economy supporting local business.
We also want to rebuild the relationship that the council has with residents and make you real partners in what we are doing. We want to stop the feeling that the council does things to your local area, and make it a relationship where you feed in your ideas and priorities and we do things together to create better neighbourhoods.
I’m really looking forward to keeping you updated with our progress and working with you to build a Swindon we can all be proud of.
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