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Last week, Sussex’s Police and Crime Commissioner passed their Budget for 2017/18. This, along with ‘holding the Chief Constable to account’, is essentially the only power they have, for which local taxpayers pay them £85,000 a year. I’ve had my doubts Police Commissioners from the start, the fact that only 14% of voters in Crawley…
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As the holidays draw to a close and we begin the new year, it’s back to work and for many that means the unwelcome Christmas gift of seeing the price of their train ticket increase. Train ticket prices are out of control. Over the period the Conservatives have been in Government we’ve seen rail fares…
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Christmas is almost here. Over the last month the council has supported a variety of seasonal events around the Town Centre, including a production of A Christmas Carol along the High Street. Dickens’ classic tale is a mainstay of the season, barely a year goes by without some new interpretation making it onto our screens,…
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There are now more working households in poverty than those households where no one works. For all the Prime Minister’s talk, we are fast becoming a country where work no longer pays, with over 7.4m people in working households living in poverty already, with parents working full-time on the National Living Wage set to see…
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On average, we spend a third of our lives at work, almost half of all the time we’re awake. We hear a lot about getting people into work, and the benefits of work can go well beyond the obvious financial ones, but much less gets said these days about the working conditions in which people…
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After the better part of a decade being told by Conservative politicians that the priority for the UK’s economy was ending the deficit, in last week’s Autumn Statement they abandoned that goal, leaving the country without an economic strategy and the Tory Government without any purpose. Following six wasted years of pain, future economic growth…
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Recently I’ve received considerable numbers of emails about the NHS and its local ‘Sustainability and Transformation Plan’ or STP. Like every organisation, our National Health Service has to evolve to meet the challenges of the future and the Sussex and East Surrey STP will set out what that means for service-users in Crawley. In their…
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Last Sunday we were called upon to remember all those who have served our country in past conflicts. Remembrance events in Crawley are always well-attended and this year was no different, with residents from across the town’s communities coming together in commemoration. Remembrance Sunday began as a way of acknowledging the nation’s collective loss in…
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The Department for Transport could end the disruption on Southern Rail by tomorrow morning, if they wanted. Instead we find a Government determined to back up a failing franchise while local Tories seek to deflect the blame. Unlike traditional franchises, GoVia only ‘manage’ the network on behalf of Government and get paid a set amount…
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Our National Health Service is the great leveller. While inequality may allow a two-tier system to exist over much of our society, as those with money opting out of public services as the Conservative Government starves them of funding, and despite insidious attempts to invite an American-style private health system into the UK, even the…
Peter Lamb for Crawley 