Agenda item

To consider motions on the following:

 

·  Transport

·  Stand up for local pharmacies

·  Tackling flytipping in Southwark

·  Make fair transitional state pension arrangements for 1950’s women.

RESOLVED:

 

TRANSPORT

 

That the motion referred from council assembly as a recommendation to cabinet, set out below be agreed:

 

1.  Southwark Labour is committed to making the borough a cleaner, greener, healthier and more pleasant place to live for our residents.

 

2.  Council assembly recognises that high quality, accessible and well maintained transport is essential to improve the public realm, expand economic growth and to enable residents to travel and access services as freely and easily as possible.

 

3.  Council assembly also recognises that transport has a significant environmental impact, particularly on air quality, and this administration’s priority is to deliver a sustainable transport system, which promotes and encourages walking, cycling and improving public transport access and links.

 

4.  Council assembly welcomes the steps this administration has taken improve transport and make Southwark a more pleasant borough to live, including:

 

o  investing over £30m in cycling over 5 years and launching the Southwark Cycling Strategy to make it easier and safer for people in the borough to travel by bike,

o  delivering the new north-south cycle route, the Southwark Spine, to complement Quietway cycling routes and link to the new north-south Cycle Superhighway on Blackfriars Road;

o  increasing the number of Play Streets, closing roads to make it easier and safer for children to play outdoors;

o  making Southwark an Age Friendly Borough, enabling older people to access a broad range of affordable and accessible transport options to get around the borough easily;

o  doubling investment in roads and making Southwark a 20mph borough;

o  successfully campaigning for improvements to bus services, such as extending the 42 and 136 bus routes, and improving the C10.

 

Regeneration

 

1.  Council assembly recognises that effective transport infrastructure is necessary for regeneration, to both unlock new developments and meet existing demand, for example on the Old Kent Road, where the Bakerloo Line Extension will help deliver growth in homes and jobs.

 

2.  Council assembly welcomes the steps that the administration has taken to use infrastructure in new developments to make it safer for people to walk and cycle, for example at Elephant Park;

 

3.  Council assembly calls on the cabinet to continue working with Transport for London (TfL) to extend the Santander Cycle Hire scheme through Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, and bring the scheme to Camberwell, Peckham and Walworth.

 

Air Quality

 

4.  Council assembly recognises the significant impact transport has on air quality; the most polluted areas in the borough, where national standards for air quality are frequently exceeded, correspond to the major road network.

 

5.  Council assembly therefore welcomes the work the council has done to improve air quality, including working with Tower Hamlets on the Tower Bridge Anti-idling partnership to encourage drivers to turn off engines when stationary, and improving the council’s commercial fleet to reduce emissions.

 

6.  Council assembly also welcomes Mayor of London’s commitment to improving air quality by:

 

o  bringing forward the implementation of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) and extending it to cover more of the borough, following calls led by Southwark Labour;

o  introducing new Clean Bus Corridors, prioritising new, clean buses in the most polluted roads in the city, and setting a target of only buying clean electric or hydrogen buses from 2020;

o  bringing forward plans for the new Rotherhithe pedestrian and cycle bridge following campaigns by Labour councillors, which will bring benefits for the local environment by reducing congestion;

o  making cycling easier and safer for more Londoners.

 

7.  Council assembly welcomes the Mayor’s commitment to delivering ‘Healthy Streets’ and calls on the cabinet to continue to put pressure on TfL to deliver public realm improvements in Peckham and Camberwell town centres in line with this vision.

 

Rail services

 

8.  Council assembly welcomes the consultation on the new Thameslink Programme timetable and the  introduction of 4 trains an hour on the Catford Loop, but believes that this should be a 7 day service and should extend the service through the whole Thameslink core;

 

9.  Council assembly notes the continued and unacceptable levels of delays, cancellations and overcrowding on Southern Rail services, and calls on the government to allow TfL to be able to take over rail services in south London;

 

10.  Council assembly welcomes the progress the council has made with TfL on the re-opening of Camberwell station, and calls on the cabinet to continue lobbying TfL and train companies to make the strong case for re-opening the station.

 

STAND UP FOR LOCAL PHARMACIES

 

That the motion referred from council assembly as a recommendation to cabinet, set out below be agreed:

 

1.  Council assembly notes that Department of Health has announced it is pushing forward with dramatic cuts of £170 million to the funding of community pharmacies in England this year and that it has not ruled out more cuts to follow.

 

2.  Council assembly notes that this funding cut could result in 3,000 pharmacies (a quarter of all pharmacies) closing across the country. In Southwark, 18 pharmacies could be at risk of closing.

 

3.  Council assembly believes that the government's plans threaten patient access to pharmacies and pharmacy services in Southwark. Our local pharmacies are at risk of closure or being forced to cut services such as free delivery of prescription drugs, family planning advice and advice on medicines. This will put more pressure on GPs and hospitals and impact social services and is at odds with the local Clinical Commissioning Group's desire to increase the use of pharmacists to ease pressure on GPs.

 

4.  Council assembly notes that the Local Government Association (LGA) has criticised the Department of Health for overlooking the role of community pharmacy as a 'much needed social and economic asset' and warned of ‘unintended consequences’ that will impact elsewhere in the local community.

 

5.  Council assembly therefore calls on the Government to abandon these cuts and maintain a fully-funded community pharmacy service and asks the cabinet member for public health, parks and leisure to write to the Secretary of State for Health, NHS England and Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group expressing this view.

 

6.  Council assembly also asks the cabinet member for public health, parks and leisure write to the borough’s three Members of Parliament asking them to make similar representations on this matter to the Secretary of State for Health.

 

The cabinet member for adult care and financial inclusion to verify that the Secretary of State for Health and borough’s three Members of Parliament had been written to, as set out in recommendation 6.

 

TACKLING FLYTIPPING IN SOUTHWARK

 

That the motion referred from council assembly as a recommendation to cabinet, set out below be agreed:

 

1.  Council assembly notes that:

 

·  Southwark Council proactively collects fly-tips and records these alongside fly-tips reported by the public, which leads to Southwark having a higher recorded rate of flytipping than other boroughs, who do not record data in this way;

 

·  The council introduced a £16 flat-rate charge for the collection of up to 10 items of bulky waste last year, as part of £30m in budget savings across council services;

 

·  Over the last 5 years, Southwark Council has had to make savings of over £156m, equivalent to a third of the council’s budget, because of cuts from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative governments, and this year the council has to make a further £26.5m savings;

 

·  2015/16 data for local authorities has not yet been published, so there is no comparative data available since the introduction of Southwark’s bulky waste charge.

 

2.  Council assembly calls on the cabinet to:

 

·  continue to monitor flytipping in Southwark

 

·  continue to take proactive steps to reduce incidences of people illegally dumping items in our borough

 

·  publish the number of flytipping incidents which are cleared by council staff, as well the number of incidents reported by the public.

 

MAKE FAIR TRANSITIONAL STATE PENSION ARRANGEMENTS FOR 1950’S WOMEN

 

That the motion referred from council assembly as a recommendation to cabinet, set out below be agreed:

 

1.  Council assembly calls on the governmentto make fair transitional state pension arrangements for all women born on or after 6 April 1951, who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age (SPA) with lack of appropriate notification.

 

2.  Council assembly notes that:

 

·  Hundreds of thousands of women had significant pension changes imposed on them by the Pensions Acts of 1995 and 2011 with little or no personal notification of the changes. Some women had only two years notice of a six-year increase to their state pension age.

 

·  Many women born in the 1950s are living in hardship. Retirement plans have been shattered with devastating consequences. Many of these women are already out of the labour market, caring for elderly relatives, providing childcare for grandchildren, or suffer discrimination in the workplace so struggle to find employment.

 

·  Women born in this decade are suffering financially. These women have worked hard, raised families and paid their tax and national insurance with the expectation that they would be financially secure when reaching 60.

 

·  It is not the pension age itself that is in dispute - it is widely accepted that women and men should retire at the same time. The issue is that the rise in the women's state pension age has been too rapid and has happened without sufficient notice being given to the women affected, leaving women with no time to make alternative arrangements.

 

3.  Council assembly calls on the government to reconsider transitional arrangements for women born on or after 6 April 1951, so that women do not live in hardship due to pension changes they were not told about until it was too late to make alternative arrangements.

 

The cabinet member for adult care and financial inclusion to write to the Treasury and to the Department for Work and Pensions.