Last month my colleague, Nick Hurd MP, introduced a private member’s ‘Sustainable Communities Bill’ into the House of Commons. I fully support this bill and I am pleased to say that it has a lot of cross-party support and therefore easily succeeded in getting a second reading by a large majority. It will now move forward to be debated in Committee.
There is growing concern all across the country that our communities are in decline. Local businesses are being driven out of existence. Many high streets no longer offer a wide range of shops, we have post offices that are being shut down, local hospitals under threat of closure, police stations with limited opening hours and declining civic participation. People feel that they are helpless when they watch these community services disappear and once the centre of the community is devoid of services, it can easily spiral into a ‘ghost-town’ of fast-food shops and graffiti. Local character is being lost and everywhere looks the same.
The Sustainable Communities Bill aims to reverse this worrying trend. If it is passed and becomes law, it will provide greater power to local people to make the decisions that affect how the taxpayers’ money is spent in our communities. All too often it seems decisions that affect our lives are made by some distant body – quite often one that we have never heard of! At the moment up to three quarters of taxpayers’ money spent in our communities is spent by central government or quangos. This bill would enable local authorities to receive a breakdown of central government spending in their area and if they don’t like it, they can go back to the Secretary of State with an alternative plan.
The Sustainable Communities Bill also requires local and central government to give more priority to the long term development and protection of communities. 10-year action plans specifically designed to promote sustainability in local communities will be drawn up.
I am always keen to hear what your local priorities are – if you could change where central government spent their money locally where would you spend it? For more information on the Sustainable Communities Bill, visit www.localworks.org.
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