As this is my first blog of 2025 so I want to wish you and your family a happy new year, and I hope that it will be a happy, healthy and prosperous one both for you and for everyone in our borough.
The council has exciting plans for the year ahead and I am sure that 2025 will be a year where we are able to deliver on many of the pledges we have made to make our borough that bit better.
At the last election we made a series of promises to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour and this year we will deliver ward panels to ensure that local priorities are being tackled by the police.
We promised action on the climate crisis and we will continue to deliver active travel infrastructure in all 7 towns as well as planting another 16,000 trees toward our target.
We promised to help our residents lead healthy and equal lives. This year we will roll out our better lives model to ensure people can continue to access care within their own homes. We will also make sure that our social care teams are based within our 7 towns to ensure they understand the unique needs of our different communities.
We promised our young residents a fairer start and this year we are soon to open our young adults centre in Southall.
We promised decent living incomes and we will continue to increase the number of employers offering the real London living wage across the borough.
We promised a more inclusive economy and this year we will be encouraging and support our local community and voluntary sector to help us deliver services.
We promised safe and affordable homes and that is why this year we will invest in properties to ensure fewer families have to stay in temporary accommodation. We will also work with the government to deliver a better deal for private renters.
We promised to deliver good growth and new homes. This year we will ensure local infrastructure benefits from money being made available for local projects, through the new Community Infrastructure Levy.
We also promised thriving communities. This year we will launch our community charter and the ‘Your Voice, Your Town’ initiatives. These programmes will ensure we have a new approach to engaging with you. We will work with communities across all of our 7 towns to ensure that the council’s services work with community and voluntary groups across the borough on the good projects they are already working on.
2025 promises to be a busy year. These highlights are just a selection of how we will deliver on our commitments over the next year. I look forward to bringing you more news of what we’re delivering across the year.
Happy new year.
