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  • Labour Party Conference has been in Manchester this week, setting out the stall for next year’s General Election. As I write, only the first announcements of the conference have been made, but for Crawley I suspect they will be some of the most significant commitments of the Party Conference Season. The National Minimum Wage is

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  • It’s been 10 years since I was last responsible for Leisure and Cultural Services and looking at Tilgate Park a lot has happened since my time, but much still remains to be done. I always wanted to build the Tilgate relief road, relieving congestion in Tilgate, and it’s now moving ahead with my full support.

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  • After eight years in opposition Crawley Labour Party has regained control of Crawley Borough Council. This is the fourth election since 2010 where Labour has won the popular vote in the town and sets the ground for the General Election next year. When last in office Labour built K2 and the Hawth, bought Tilgate Park

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  • For far too long Crawley Borough Council has been in a state of chaos, with key decisions being postponed and Conservative in-fighting dominating the council’s business. We’ve been left with a council budget with no sense of aspiration for the town and without any Local Plan at all, leaving the town vulnerable to hostile development.

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  • Conservative councillors this week rejected Labour’s compromise deal on the Local Plan, leaving Crawley defenceless against hostile development. Before Christmas, the Conservative Cabinet at Crawley Borough Council failed to pass their draft of the Local Plan following public opposition to a number of its proposals and, after rejecting amendments to resolve these issues, members of

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  • Labour councillors will be voting to freeze Council Tax for this year and, if elected in May, a Labour council would also freeze Council Tax in 2015/16. Council budgets are stretched but by baselining funding equivalent to an annual one percent increase in Council Tax into the council’s Revenue Support Grant the cost of freezing

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  • Crawley’s Cabinet is meeting tonight to decide the budget they’ll be proposing to Full Council in a couple of weeks’ time. The Budget takes months to form, with officers starting the process of putting a new one together almost as soon as the previous one has passed. Given the failure of the Conservative administration to

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  • The State of the Borough The Crawley Debate Crawley Question Time is being held this Wednesday and I will be a member of the panel answering questions from the public, along with my Conservative opposite number. Last year the format restricted the public and members of the panel to only discussing proposals for a second

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  • Crawley’s Labour councillors have called on the Government to pay back money illegally taken from local residents. Following an admission by the Department for Work and Pensions that the Bedroom Tax has been levied on a number of residents who were legally protected under Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Regulations (2006), Peter Lamb and

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  • Crawley’s Labour councillors have called on the Government to pay back money illegally taken from local residents. Following an admission by the Department for Work and Pensions that the Bedroom Tax has been levied on a number of residents who were legally protected under Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Regulations (2006), Peter Lamb and

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