Islington Labour has launched its manifesto for the 2022 Local Elections, pledging to build a more equal Islington.
Islington Labour will always be focused on making our borough a fairer and more equal place.
We have made great strides in recent years, building genuinely affordable homes for local people, helping people into good jobs and providing a better start in life for young people.
We are proud that, since 2018, Islington’s Labour-run Council has:
- Delivered 550 new Council homes
- Supported over 4000 local people into good jobs
- Continued to provide Free School Meals to every primary age child, and tackled holiday hunger with 120,000 meals supplied this summer alone
But the Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the inequalities present in our society and we have much more to do.
Access to safe, decent, genuinely affordable homes isn’t wide enough, too many families struggle to make ends meet and poor air quality seriously affects people across London.
Islington Labour’s manifesto launched today (26th March 2022), Fairer, Safer, Greener, Together: Building a more equal Islington, sets out a vision to challenge these issues head on and create a more equal borough.
By building more genuinely affordable and council homes, helping with the cost of living by supporting people into well-paid jobs, tackling the digital divide and making Islington a safer place for all, we are tackling the things that matter most to local people.
Over the next four years, we will:
- Deliver at least 750 brand new council homes, as part of 1,550 new genuinely affordable and social homes for local people, and invest £10 million in improving Islington’s estates;
- Help 5,000 more local people into good jobs, as well as creating 1000 new apprenticeships and supporting 450 more local businesses to pay the real Living Wage;
- Spend over £10 million per year on making our council homes fit for the future with new insulation and energy efficiency measures, reducing carbon emissions and energy bills
- Protect and enhance local youth services while ensuring every Islington child has access to a laptop or tablet as they move into secondary school.
Cllr Kaya Comer-Schwartz, Leader of Islington Council, said:
“Local people need a local council that is on their side. Our neighbours have told us they need more genuinely affordable homes, help into good jobs, a cleaner, greener, safer, healthier Islington. We know if we deliver how important it will be in creating a more equal Islington.
“That is what our manifesto sets out. With 750 more council homes, 5000 more people into work and every child moving into secondary school having access to a laptop or tablet.”
“I’m so proud of our Islington Labour manifesto for the local elections. It is a radical vision for a brighter future and a more equal Islington.
Cllr Diarmaid Ward, Deputy Leader of Islington Council, said:
“We have so much to be proud of in Islington. We have made a real difference to local people’s lives, despite Tory austerity forcing the Council to make £281 million of budget savings since 2010.
“Our manifesto for the Local Elections shows the difference that a Labour Council makes to people’s lives. With the largest council home building programme in a generation, a real plan to help local people into work and protecting youth services, this is a manifesto to be proud of and one we can’t wait to campaign on.”
You can read more about the Islington Labour 2022 Manifesto here.
A safe, decent, genuinely affordable place to call home
By 2026, we will:
- Deliver at least 750 brand new council homes, as part of 1550 new genuinely affordable and social homes for local people
- Invest £10 million in making Islington’s estates greener, safer and healthier
- Introduce Estate Champions to provide a better service for people on estates
- Ensure that all estates in the borough have access to high speed, cheap broadband
- Extend the landlord licensing scheme to ensure local people can enjoy safe, decent, secure homes, whoever their landlord
- Work with renters’ unions to implement a Tenants’ Charter in Islington
- Spend £10 million per year in making our council homes fit for the future and work with local people to campaign for the same for homes not under Council control
- Make sure that all developers in the borough, including the Council, provide the community facilities local people need when building new homes
- Work with local people to stand up for them against developers and housing associations for improved fire safety.
Cleaner, greener, healthier borough for all
By 2026, we will:
- Replace every tree lost and overall deliver a net gain of at least 600 trees every year
- Co-design and consult on the introduction of liveable neighbourhoods across the borough
- Invest in secure cycle storage with enough space to meet demand and cut costs of bike storage for lower-income households
- Increase and improve Islington’s green space by re-purposing 1.5 hectares of land, equivalent to Paradise Park
- Install 400 more electric vehicle chargers
- Campaign against cuts to Islington’s buses
- Continue creating a circular economy, to encourage sharing and reusing everyday items
- Invest £200,000 per year on new recycling facilities on estates and create a new council team to lead on recycling engagement, as part of our commitment to reach a 40% recycling rate by 2030
- Roll out food waste collection where possible
- Campaign for Tory Government action on recycling.
Giving every young person the best possible start in life
By 2026, we will:
- Ensure every child has access to a laptop or tablet when they move into year 7
- Extend high-quality mental health services for young people in schools and youth hubs
- Launch an Islington Youth Employment service, to replace the Connexions service lost through Tory austerity
- Protect our youth services, ensuring young people have places to go and things to do
- Continue to provide free school meals for all nursery and primary school children
- Invest in improvements to our Adventure Playgrounds
- Provide free swimming lessons for families in Easter holidays and May half term, building on the current summer offer
- Work with local schools, neighbouring boroughs and local communities to drive down the number of exclusions in Islington
- Protect the School Uniform Grant and the Islington Bursary, to replace the Educational Maintenance Allowance that the Tories scrapped.
Making our borough a safer place for everyone
By 2026, we will:
- Provide 300 safe havens in Islington, including at least 15 in each ward, providing everyone with a friendly place to go if they feel threatened or unsafe
- Make Islington a safer place for women and girls by investing in excellent services for those affected by domestic abuse, early intervention and work to make perpetrators accountable
- Tackle anti-social behaviour with a dedicated reporting phone line and rollout of estate champions.
Good, well-paid jobs for local people
By 2026, we will:
- Support 5000 local people into work
- Work with local contractors and employers to create 1000 new apprenticeships
- Support 450 local businesses to be accredited by the Living Wage Foundation by 2026, resulting in over 60,000 Islington workers being paid the real Living Wage
- Promote an Islington-first procurement strategy, to support local business and keep money in our borough
- Introduce more Affordable Workspaces to support entrepreneurs and small businesses
- Continue looking to bring council services in-house where possible
- Ensure high quality environmental services for town centres and high streets, particularly refuse, recycling and street cleaning, to support local businesses.
A Healthier Islington
By 2026, we will:
- Tackle food poverty by working with the Right to Food campaign
- Lead the campaign against the privatisation of the NHS
- Invest in early diagnosis programmes, to ensure illnesses are spotted and treated earlier
- Provide access to free swimming lessons in the Easter holidays and May half term for young people and over 60s too
- Implement an access to toilets scheme – working with businesses to allow people to use their toilets free of charge when out and about
- Increase access to disabled toilets for our disabled community.
Working with our communities
By 2026, we will:
- Protect funding for the Voluntary and Community Sector
- Act on the recommendations of Let’s Talk Islington to make our borough an equal place
- Develop an Islington Black Cultural Centre to celebrate our Black communities.