Leaders Election Statement - Allen Brett Labour

Date published: 30/04/2008

Lib Dems must be held accountable at the ballot box, says Councillor Brett.

As 1 May approaches, the Labour Group leader, Councillor Brett has offered his views to Rochdale Online on why people must make their vote count.

Admitting that he had concerns over the possibility of a poor turnout, he stressed that people should not fall into the trap of thinking these elections don’t count. “The stakes are very high,” he argued. “Rochdale is at a critical point in that we cannot afford to stand still. If we don’t start to make real progress then the social problems we are facing will just get worse.”

He also urged voters to remember that these are local elections to determine who represents you on the council. “Gordon Brown will still be the Prime Minister on 2 May whether you vote Labour or not,” he said. “This is your chance to assess what the Lib Dems have done since they took charge of our council. It’s time to hold them accountable for Rochdale being downgraded to a two star council by the Audit Commission. And a chance to tell them at the ballot box what you think of failing adult care services, poorly managed bin collections and unacceptable levels of rubbish on our streets.”

Reflecting on a year that has often seen strained communications between the two main parties and culminated in the Lib Dems rejecting every single Labour proposal at the recent council Budget, Councillor Brett stressed that the Labour Group were offering a very different approach to local government than their Liberal Democrat opponents.

“We have listened to your concerns and pressed hard for change,” he said. “We called for lower council tax, after our Government gave us £3million more than the council asked for, more money to be spent on grot spots, youth nuisance and highways. We asked for more frontline workers and fewer bureaucrats in the town hall. All this was ignored by the Lib Dems.

“We’ve brought senior ministers to Rochdale and achieved major investment in new play areas. We have a new bus station on its way and free bus passes for the elderly. But we need your vote to do much, much more.”

In what will be his last local elections, as he will standing down as Councillor and Labour Group leader on May 1st, Councillor Brett said he felt privileged to have served as a councillor for so long and added that local politics in Rochdale had never been more important.

“What concerns me most is that we are now one of the most deprived towns in the North West, health inequalities are widening and the Lib Dems have no answer to this,” he said. “Our Labour Government will be investing hundreds of millions of pounds into regenerating Rochdale and the Lib Dems think they can sit back and enjoy the benefits. I’m afraid they are laboring under the Thatcherite delusion that economic regeneration will naturally see social progress follow.

“This view failed in the 1980s and it will fail now. If we’re going to tackle obesity, health problems, unemployment, crime, and make more cohesive communities then a vote for a united Labour group will be one that gives us a mandate to work hard to get social mobility moving again, promote social regeneration and build the right partnerships for change.”

Emphasising that the council has a major role to play in shaping Rochdale’s future, he said that whoever was elected as the leading group must work more co-operatively to bring together the right mix of skills to tackle these problems. “As long as the Lib Dems remain committed to their style of antagonistic, uncooperative politics,” he warned, “then we simply won’t make progress.”