Harlow Labour call for next year’s local elections to be cancelled
News / Tue 20th Sep 2022 at 07:58am
THE Harlow Labour Group has called for the District Council elections to be cancelled.
Labour Group leader, Chris Vince said: “The ongoing Boundary Commission boundary review will, in 2024, lead to all of Harlow district council’s 33 council seats being up for election.This means anyone elected next year, May 2023, will only be elected for a year.
“For this reason the Labour Group believe that it would be prudent to cancel the 2023 local elections thereby saving tens of thousands of pounds of tax payers money on an election which will have no long term benefit.
“Harlow residents are, like so many others across the country, facing an unprecedented cost of living crisis with many people having to make really tough choices for their families.
“Politicians of all parties must now come together, rather than fight elections, to do what they can to provide support and practical solutions to these issues. In that spirit we seek cross party support for this proposal”.
YH will be approaching the Conservative group for a reponse.
novoman
2022-09-20 09:10:29
Why cancel a chance to throw out the incompetent!! The sooner the better, and the sooner schemes that are damaging the environment and squandering public money might be cancelled and put into measures that will reduce poverty and the hardships imposed on the population, better still if boundaries are changing and now we have a government being run on new policies from an unelected Prime Minister, let's have a general election.
David Forman
2022-09-20 10:12:01
For a pleasant change, Harlow Labour have a sensible idea.
Seamus
2022-09-20 10:56:33
Let's drive the snakes out harlow next year.
Mike Andrews
2022-09-20 16:56:23
Reading the comments about "get Tories out" and "get labour in", I'll say this. When I moved to Harlow 2.5 years ago, Labour ran the council. There were countless times our bins weren't collected. Then the Tories took over, and service delivery changed to bins never being missed as Violia was served terms. Judging purely on basic service delivery, not sure why anyone would want Labour back in power - they literally can't even get rubbish collections right
Tom
2022-09-20 18:43:52
Mike Andrews you are right. Also, the environmental backlog of work under Labour was shocking. They allowed their sidekicks in HTS to all furlough, including personnel who worked outside and socially distanced. This meant the new Conservative administration had a massive backlog to correct, which they have largely done. The new administration has also started the long overdue process of town centre regeneration and council house building, also both neglected badly under Labour.
Nostradamus
2022-09-20 21:55:42
There are other parties than the same old tired red and blue, same old faces, both parties have failed Harlow, time for change.
Tom
2022-09-21 12:03:28
Nostradamus, to be fair, the current Tory administration inherited a mess from 10 years of Labour control and in less than 18 months in office seem to be doing what they said: fixing the environmental maintenance backlog, roads are starting to be repaired by Essex Council, cut council tax, started the town centre regeneration after years of neglect and building council houses. Of course there is much to do, but it is a decent start.
Nicholas Taylor
2022-09-21 16:26:53
Tom, correct me if I am wrong but I don't seem to remember the Tories complaining about any environmental backlog when in opposition and/or the furloughing of HTS staff, the fixing of roads is a County issue, there is no evidence of any town centre regeneration to date and the building of council houses is so far just what Labour was planning. The fact is, after 16 months in power, our estates look just as tatty as when Labour were in power, council houses remain externally in disrepair and unpainted and little if any work has been undertaken to create the best cycle track system in the world. Its all smoke and mirrors and in the meantime 70% of the general public have given up on politicians and don't bother to vote anymore.
Maureen
2022-09-23 03:44:05
Although the idea might have some appeal, upon closer examination, it is unlikely to have any legal basis. Elections are the basis of representative democracy and cannot be changed, prorogued or cancelled for spurious reasons. The Covid pandemic was an exception based entirely upon very real public health grounds and should not be considered a precedent. If politicians can cancel elections at whim, then we are entering the sinister world of dictatorships like Putin’s Russia or Maduro’s Venezuela. Really you would expect a senior local Labour politician to check the legality of his proposal before waxing lyrical. I suspect a less altruistic and far more cynical motive lies behind this Labour proposal.
J Smithson
2022-09-23 09:57:55
Actually Maureen, Liverpool cancelled their elections last year because they were having all out ones this year. As far as I'm aware, they are not in Venezuela or Russia.
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