Southwark Conservatives say Labour’s “ideologically-driven, flawed policies” are giving the Tory campaign a “groundswell of momentum people have never seen before”.
Clive Rates and Tristan Honeyborne, Dulwich Village’s Conservative candidates and authors of the Conservatives’ Southwark manifesto, hope to recapture Dulwich Village, lost to Labour in 2018.
Rates, who was not standing back then, said: “The Conservative vote in Dulwich was a strongly remainer vote, therefore they did struggle a little bit.”
But Honeyborne says things will be different this time: “People have seen what it’s like having councillors that don’t listen and ignore you for four years.”
Southwark Conservatives are standing candidates in every ward, with a particular focus on the key battlegrounds of Duwich Village, Dulwich Wood and South Bermondsey.
Asked if they have even a fleeting hope of winning the council, Clive Rates and Tristan Honeyborne say “give us twenty years”.
But this hasn’t stopped them from drawing up a Southwark-wide manifesto. They hope it will challenge the council’s spending plans which they argue are inefficient and often forced through without consultation.
Top of the agenda is low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs). Honeyborne and Rates were inspired to enter politics by the LTNs that were imposed across Southwark during the first Coronavirus lockdown.
They say the lack of consultation on these schemes “shines a light on how the council do business” across the borough.
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Honeyborne says while it’s “crucial to tackle the climate emergency, the political capital placed on road traffic is unwarranted”.
They are instead advocating for improved public transport to discourage car ownership and more bike storage units. They didn’t know how many bike storage units they wanted.
They also believe they could alter traffic flow to decrease area congestion.
Asked why they thought they could effectively re-route traffic, something they criticise the council for doing, Rates said: “Tristan’s a lawyer and I have a background in accountancy. We can solve complex issues.”
Tristan Honeyborne describes Labour’s record of providing affordable housing as “poor” explaining: “Labour don’t stand up for ordinary people who most need to help.
“Many people have told us of empty social housing which has been left vacant for years. We are baffled as to why these are unused.
“If Southwark can’t manage the existing housing stock that is frankly going to waste, we should all be very nervous at the amount of public money being borrowed to fund additional housing.”
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As councillors, they say they would push for a full audit on all its housing stock, and aim to fill empty homes.
However, the News pointed out that filling Southwark’s 2,705 long-term empty homes, many of which are in private hands, would hardly make a dent in the 16,000 person waiting list.
This seemed to surprise them and they struggled to come up with other ideas to solve the housing crisis.
On crime, Honeyborne said: “Barely a month goes by without hearing a harrowing story” of gun or knife crime.
Clive believes councillors have a duty to encourage and facilitate better crime reporting, an idea which he says the local police back.
They have also pledged to cut council tax, saying they would aspire to emulate Conservative-run Wandsworth Council, where residents pay some of the lowest average council tax in the country.
Asked how they would continue adequately to fund Southwark’s services with this cut, Honeyborne said they’d give residents “better bang for their buck”.
They would do this through ‘benchmark studies’ which compare council spending in different departments to other wards with similar demographics, to see where costs could be cut.
They also said they would reverse Labour’s introduction of parking charges in Dulwich Park and around the tennis courts to enable better access to local greens spaces.
The News asked whether the national ‘partygate’ scandal would put off voters. Honeyborne said: “We’ve only been discussing local issues with people. If anybody does bring it up we talk about the impact we can have on people’s lives here.
“We’d be doing a disservice to people if we were to bring in other issues.
“We’ve been told by life-long Labour voters that because of the way they’ve been treated by Southwark Labour, they will be voting for us.”
Conservative key pledges:
• Sustainably reduce Southwark’s carbon footprint and make our borough greener.
• Resist and remove road and traffic measures that do not have community support.
• Provide effective opposition and scrutiny in policy formation and decision making, in particular giving local businesses a voice.
• Put a brake on Southwark’s council tax increases and spend taxpayer money more efficiently, on those who need it most.
• Support our police, health and other local services to reduce crime and boost healthcare provision
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- WATCH: We did a special Gogglebox-style coverage in the in the run-up to the election – click below to view what residents have to say
Southwark Elections 2022: What do the ordinary people of Southwark think?
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- The Greens say they won’t win but wants seats on the council, what they have to say? – Click here
- The Conservatives are hoping to get back seat on the council – how are they planning to do that? – Click here
- Outside the mainstream three other parties are standing in some areas of Southwark – who are they? – Read below
