With the council busy right up until the week before Christmas I was, like many others I’m sure, more than ready for a break.
The Labour group worked hard in 2022 as the opposition party, to try to act in the face of the gathering storm clouds of the “cost of living crisis”.
We are very concerned the worst is still to come for the city but were reasonably pleased with the results of our efforts at the last full council of the year.
Our housing lead, Gill Williams, called for the administration to take firmer action against bad landlords using revenge evictions as a tactic when tenants dare complain about poor conditions.
Our newly elected member for Wish ward Bella Sankey made her maiden speech, a powerful call for the council to act on the shameful – and potentially illegal – Home Office practise of dumping unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the city without protection in place, abandoning them to the attentions of criminals and traffickers.
Labour’s co-leader Carmen Appich proposed a joint motion calling for more resources to be found to address the mental health emergency, particularly in schools and colleges, as provision for young people is nowhere near keeping pace with demand.
We also amended the administration’s somewhat self-congratulatory motion updating actions taken on the climate emergency locally.
We called for much more action to improve public transport and continue to argue that we will never persuade people to leave their cars at home more often, particularly families, people further out of town, older or less fit people, etc, unless transport services are both plentiful and cheap.
After all that, I went more than 300 miles north for the festive season and – despite a stressful train journey, my NHS daughter working a scary 41 hours over the Christmas weekend alone and the unwanted attentions of several nasty lurgies among family – had a restful time.
Now the holidays are over the crisis will sadly continue but, although we’re all worried that things are going to get worse before they get better, the Labour group (and Labour nationally too, of course) have a renewed energy and lots of ideas to try to tackle the problems as they arise in our communities and businesses, so we are raring to go.
Happy new year to one and all and here’s hoping 2023 is a better one for everyone!
Councillor Amanda Evans is the deputy leader of the Labour opposition on Brighton and Hove City Council.
Sounds like she’s re council elections belatedly trying to distance Labour from the Green fruitcakes who have ruined Brighton – but we won’t forget Labour’s backing of most of their vanity schemes over the last few years.
Only Labour opposed the I360
It supported everything else the Greens wanted to do
Have you booted out all the Momentum loons yet?
And did Labour work hard in 2022 as the opposition party, in opposing the wasteful spending of £25,000 on an “art installation” along Madeira Terrace, (not exactly loved by its ratepayers), while complaining, along with the Greens, that they cannot afford to keep the public toilets open?