Trafford Conservatives Securing a stronger borough. Our Manifesto for

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1 Securing a stronger borough Our Manifesto for

2 TRAFFORD a great place for living Trafford is a borough of busy traditional town centres, exceptional shopping centres, including the renowned Trafford Centre and internationally recognised sporting venues in the two Old Traffords, homes to Manchester United and Lancashire County Cricket Club. It is also home to the award winning Imperial War Museum North and has recently become the home of Coronation Street with the new ITV Studios built beside the Ship Canal. The range of housing in Trafford spans everything from edge-of-city urban locations, across leafy suburbs to rural settings. Almost 100,000 households and 210,000 residents make up the borough. The low levels of crime make Trafford the safest place to live in Greater Manchester. Trafford has long had an enviable record in educational attainment, with outstanding examination results in some of the region's best schools. Trafford sends record numbers of pupils on to university education. The borough has excellent road and public transport links yet also features fine countryside within its boundaries. Traversed by the expanding Metrolink, Trafford eagerly awaits a further extension of the system through Trafford Park. Davyhulme East Davyhulme West Flixton Urmston Gorse Hill Stretford Longford Clifford Bucklow-St Martins Ashton upon Mersey Priory St Mary s Sale Moor Brooklands Bowdon Broadheath Altrincham Timperley Village Hale Central Hale Barns Two

3 An introduction by Sean Anstee Leader of the Conservatives on Trafford Council Securing a stronger borough Welcome to the 2015 Conservative Manifesto for Trafford, which covers the financial year to April Contained within it are policies that aim to protect our vital front line services despite the tough financial challenges that lie before us. Local Conservatives are passionate about securing a stronger borough for all residents and businesses here in Trafford. We want to see our residents living in thriving communities, able to take opportunities that are presented, feeling well supported to benefit from the strong economy that we have in Trafford. For over ten years, local people have placed their trust in electing a Conservative Council to stand up for your interests and to be on your side. The choice at this local election is very clear continue with a Conservative council that has a clear plan or revert to the chaos of the Labour party when they last controlled Trafford, leaving local people with debt and a legacy of overspends. The 2015 Conservative manifesto sets out our key pledges as we outline what we would like to achieve together with you, as a re-elected Conservative Council. If you re with us, on May 7 th, vote Conservative. Best Wishes, Councillor Sean Anstee Three

4 Securing a stronger borough Where we have come from a record of achievement Trafford Conservatives work hard for our local communities all year round and are here to help with any matters raised. For over ten years, local people have placed their trust in returning a Conservativecontrolled Trafford Council to stand up for you. Our record of achievement is strong: Council Tax is the lowest in the North West and has been frozen since Unemployment is at a record low and more apprenticeships have been created for our young people in the last year than ever before. Our schools are top performing in the country and provide the best start in life for our children, with strong support for our grammar and high schools. Town Centres are being reinvigorated and car parking charges are the lowest in Greater Manchester. Our adult and children s services are independently assessed as excellent. The Trafford economy is the strongest in Greater Manchester and business rates have been discounted for local retailers. We are the safest place to live in Greater Manchester, and the worse place to live if you re a criminal as you are most likely to be caught. Throughout the past five years, we have delivered a balanced budget, every year despite financial pressures. Trafford councillors pay is the lowest of any metropolitan council in the United Kingdom and we cut members allowances overall by 35,000 in There is so much more to share and also much more to do. The forthcoming local election is a clear choice between Labour and the Conservatives. It s an important choice. A vote for any other party lets Labour in by the back door and in doing so would take Trafford backwards. Vote to secure a stronger Trafford, Vote Conservative. Four

5 Securing a stronger economy Trafford Conservatives are committed to improving our Town Centres and to working with all sizes of businesses in the borough, as their development benefits our communities in terms of jobs and resultant financial wellbeing. We shall invest over 2.5 million in further regenerating town centres through capital schemes such as public realm improvements in Altrincham, Sale and Partington, whilst progress continues for larger developments such as the old hospital site and Altair in Altrincham, and parts of the Stretford Masterplan. Local businesses will be supported with car parking charges amongst the lowest in the country. We will continue the process of transforming Altrincham into a modern market town. By working with new shopping centre owners to improve the retail offer. By encouraging new businesses and entrepreneurs through progressing the Town Centre Loan Scheme, and by investing 299,000 in a Fab Lab in Altrincham, which should be open by late summer By investing 1.45 million in public realm improvements. By progressing the building of a new library and community facility as part of a wider development, subject to consultation and planning, to start in late By ensuring that the long awaited Altair scheme progresses at pace now that the development agreement has been signed with Nikal, the developer. We will begin a radical transformation of Stretford by progressing the ten development sites within the Stretford Masterplan. By working with the owners of Stretford Mall to improve the retail offer and develop the indoor market. By pursuing land development opportunities and public realm improvements to the A56 where it meets Edge Lane and Kingsway. We will build further on the increase in Trafford s economic activity which saw a 14% increase in Gross Value Added over the last 12 months. By encouraging businesses to move into and grow in Trafford, thereby creating more job opportunities and retaining our high level of employment. By supporting the Greater Manchester Agreement to progress the investment of 350 million in extending Metrolink through Trafford Park and on to the Trafford Centre. By working with the Trafford Economic Growth Board to improve the advantages to businesses of being located in Trafford Park. By continuing to support the Trafford Pledge which encourages businesses in Trafford to offer local people apprenticeships and job opportunities. By working with the new landowners of the former Shell site in Carrington to progress the potential of both industrial and residential developments. Five

6 We will work with partners to deliver quality housing across the borough. This will include homes for sale, for rent and property offered on a shared-ownership basis. Whilst aiming to obtain maximum return for land sold, we also encourage affordable housing by releasing land where appropriate. By building around 250 new houses in total during 2015/16, of which around 140 will be affordable homes. Trafford Conservatives Securing a stronger economy (continued) By providing 80 apartments for older people within the Extra Care development at Shrewsbury Street, Old Trafford, due to commence in March By supporting our work with Trafford Housing Trust on the Old Trafford Masterplan. Tamworth phase 1 begins in March 2015, providing 26 affordable homes and the Lucy Street development will provide 36 affordable homes. By working with and encouraging the landowner of the intended Canalside development in Partington, to bring forward delayed plans. By working with the landowner of the proposed Trafford Waters site to bring plans forward for a 1 billion housing development, for up to 3,000 new homes. By working with the landowner of Carrington to bring forward residential and commercial use proposals for this key strategic site. We will improve the way in which council property assets are managed in order to derive maximum benefit. Disposal of land that is surplus to our requirements saves on running costs and generates much needed capital receipts, which can be used for items such as schools, libraries and highways. By working with partners to support the transfer of properties in community use to Community Groups, using longer leases to enable their control to be sustainable in the long term. Examples include Stretford Public Hall, Sale West Community Centre, the Bowdon Rooms and the Jubilee Centre, Bowdon. By working with, and monitoring the performance of Joint Venture partners so as to improve our asset and facilities management of council properties. Public realm developments in Altrincham will be funded through 1.45 million of Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy contributions. Public realm developments in Stretford will target a number of funding streams including 199,000 from our capital programme; over 2.5 million from Section.106 contributions; and 1.75 million from the Transport for Greater Manchester Growth Fund. Much of the growth in economic activity comes from investment in the council s own Economic Growth Team, with the investment in the Metrolink extension coming from central government. Housing land will be released to assist partners and our Land Pooling Agreement with Trafford Housing Trust supports progress with the Old Trafford Masterplan. The Joint Venture Contract will bring in finance and expertise to maximise our use of council properties. Six

7 Supporting children and families SUPPORTING VULNERABLE ADULTS Our population in Trafford as in the rest of the UK is living longer. Taken together with the increasing numbers of older people with dementia this is placing an increasing demand on Adult Social Services. Maintaining the overall wellbeing of our community is becoming more difficult. In the last year alone there has been an increase of 15% in the number of referrals to Social Services. We will maintain our strong identity which aims to deliver high quality services to our customers based on an integrated partnership approach with the NHS and transforming how we will deliver services. This year we are investing 8.6 million to meet the increasing demands for services. We will: Provide the best possible health and social care services, delivered efficiently and effectively to our residents and building upon our outstanding performance. Continue to expand Personal Budgets for our service users and carers and increase brokerage support to them. Continue the increase in the use of telecare-type technology so people can feel more secure at home. Work towards providing more extra care facilities for the use of our most vulnerable elderly residents in partnership with Social Landlords. Further improve re-enablement services to help our residents continue to live safely and independently in their own homes. Further integrate our services with the NHS and develop Intermediate Care in the Community to promote health improvements for our Trafford residents. Work with our partners to improve the safeguarding of our vulnerable adults and improve dignity in care. Begin implementing the Care Act from April 2015 with additional help to carers and offering free assessments of care needs to all Trafford residents. Stimulate the care market in Trafford to ensure a wide choice of high quality services that meet individuals needs. Provide access to information and advice on the full range of care services. Maintain effective quality controls on services to identify at an early stage any safeguarding issues or potential provider failures. Maintain our Dignity in Care and Dementia Kite Mark schemes. Integrate adults and children s social care to provide a single front door service for Trafford residents. Lead the implementation of the Greater Manchester Agreement in relation to the integration of health and social care in Trafford, in partnership with the Trafford Clinical Commissioning Group. Seven

8 Supporting children and families (continued) CHILDREN S SERVICES Children s Services in Trafford are now amongst the best in the country. Trafford s fully integrated multi-agency social care teams, introduced under Conservative control, continue to be at the forefront of highly rated child protection. Educational attainment in Trafford is amongst the best in the country for the Key Stages of final years of both primary and secondary education. Trafford is the only authority outside of London and the south of England to appear in the top 20 for the percentage of students attending Britain s top 30 universities. Youth Offending Services were recently independently inspected and secured the highest rating provided nationally. We will Maintain Trafford s position outperforming all Labour-controlled authorities in Greater Manchester ensuring free early education and childcare is accessed by those two-year olds who are eligible and also continue to identify and secure the funding required to maintain places for Trafford children at Trafford schools. Continue to let each school develop in its own way, by supporting our Trafford Family of Schools, which includes supporting and protecting our Grammar and High schools as they deliver excellent outcomes for the young people of Trafford. Further develop our support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disability as we strive to improve the outcomes for all our children and young people. Continue the improvements, made since Conservatives took control in Trafford, within our Foster Care and Adoption Services that have resulted in our now being considered to be amongst the best providers in Greater Manchester. This also extends to our Children-in-Care services which currently enjoy outcomes significantly above national averages and helps redress inequalities suffered by this most vulnerable group of young people. Avoid the destruction of Youth Services, as implemented by many Labour-controlled authorities, because we have already commenced the foundations of a Youth Trust by working with many other partners. We will ensure this becomes another success for Trafford and is sustainable in the future. Eight

9 Supporting children and families (continued) Quality services for children soon become outdated if they do not react to the needs of children and young people by failing to redevelop and improve. Trafford Conservatives strive for great outcomes for our children and young people. Our great schools work together, with clusters of primary schools and different types of secondary schools supporting each other. A similar approach is successfully used by partners already contributing to Trafford s successful Children s Services, including non-statutory organisation such as our leading sports clubs together with statutory partners such as Greater Manchester Police. Many have already contributed to the development of, and are further committed to, the future success of the Youth Trust. Ofsted recently carried out a full inspection of Trafford Services for Children in Need of Help and Protection, Looked After and Care Leavers, and reviewed the work of the Trafford Safeguarding Children s Board. The Report has been held back by Ofsted due to Election rules, but Conservative-controlled Trafford is looking forward to publication and the detail which will enable us to make our services even better! Nine

10 Transforming and revitalising Libraries LIBRARIES IN TRAFFORD Service has: Since taking control of the Council 2004, Trafford Conservatives have sought to modernise and improve our library service. Over the past 5 years, under Conservative control, Trafford s Library and Information Developed self-service and a new library computer system that has reduced costs, speeded up the delivery of new book stock to each library and will allow residents to access any of the libraries in 7 Greater Manchester authorities with one Trafford library card. Provided the opportunity for volunteers to assist in all libraries. Over 150 now support our library service on a regular basis. Worked with others to deliver our services. For example, Age UK are now responsible for Trafford s Home Library Service. Continued to invest in our library offer - all our libraries now have access to Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi printing to be introduced soon. Introduced e-books and e-audio books. We were one of the first Councils in the country to hire e-readers to residents. Improved the Council s online library catalogue with pictures of front covers and the ability for customers to leave reviews of books. Introduced book return reminders by to customers. We will: Provide a new 8,000 sq. ft. library in Altrincham as part of the redevelopment of the existing General Hospital site. This exciting development is central to the redevelopment of the market quarter of the town and is expected to open in Provide a new 3,500 sq. ft. library in Old Trafford in a new multi-purpose building. Work has started and is expected to complete in Seek to partner with third sector organisation, Bluesci, to establishing a community hub at Coppice Library. As well as providing library services it is envisaged that the building will be used to provide health and wellbeing services and will be available to provide additional community facilities. Ten

11 Transforming and revitalising Libraries (continued) Look to redevelop the Timperley library site to incorporate a GP surgery and a new library. This will enable greater use of the site and a brand new, modern library building. Seek to redevelop the current Hale library site to build a new library within Hale village. Look to introduce innovative new technology in a number of our libraries that will enable customers to increase access with the use of a library card and pin number. This will be similar to the retail banks that have out of hours foyer access. While Labour councils elsewhere are adopting a slash and burn approach to libraries, by empowering our residents and partners, using technology and making the best use of our community assets, Trafford Conservatives intend to continue to deliver one of the most accessible and modern library services in the country. Eleven

12 Council Tax and Reshaping Trafford Council We will freeze Council Tax for a record fifth year, and pledge to keep the charge the lowest in the North West in future years, including planning for a freeze in We will grow our business rates base to provide further funding for front line services, as a pro-economic growth, enterprising Council. As the authority continues to manage a reduction in available resources, local Conservatives will continue with our change program, Reshaping Trafford. Reshaping Trafford is at the heart of our long term plan to secure a stronger Trafford, whilst recognising a further 33m will need to be saved by the Council in the financial year s We cannot just slash services, and so part of our plan is to increase income, look at how we can sustain discretionary services differently and how we can reduce funding fairly. Through Reshaping Trafford, we will: Work with our newly appointed partner for services provided within Environment, Transport and Operations including property management to have the best possible outcomes for local people and businesses. Implement a new Sports, Culture and Leisure strategy, specifically to review the offering in Trafford and invest in the estate. Develop back office services so that they can be traded, generating an income for the Council at a time when it needs it most Focus relentlessly on reducing demand in social care by working more directly in communities to prevent, rather than react, to need Share services with our partners such as the NHS, Greater Manchester Police and Trafford Housing Trust, where appropriate Look to support other bodies or communities to takeover services that will no longer be viable without financial assistance from the Council. Reshaping Trafford is local Conservatives plan to help make Trafford more resilient and to provide services within a constrained financial envelope. The Labour party, regardless of what they say, have no idea how they would balance the books, despite flimsy promises to do so. Only Trafford Conservatives can succeed to secure a stronger borough, having a strong track record of being able to meet this challenge whilst in control of Trafford Council. Twelve

13 Enhancing our environment Under Conservative control, Trafford has continued to re-shape the services we provide to residents. We have continued to focus on our key themes of introducing new ways of working and delivering efficiencies that support the retention of valued front line services such as:- street cleaning, parks maintenance, recycling, highway maintenance, regular emptying of public litter bins, Food hygiene inspections, reducing energy consumption, removal of fly-tipping/graffiti. Additionally, we will continue to provide low cost parking, extend the #BeResponsible campaign to other environmental concerns such as littering and fly-tipping. Continue to monitor Air Quality, work with Friends of Parks and Red Rose Forest and other stakeholders to maximise improvements to our environment. Five environment pledges. We will continue to encourage even further increases in recycling rates. We will continue to provide high quality, low cost services to Trafford residents. We shall invest additional capital to improve our roads & footpaths. We will continue to provide low cost parking throughout the Borough. We shall strive to increase the number of our Parks with Green Flag status. We will explore additional options to increase recycling rates and further reduce landfill charges. Our collection regime has increased our recycling rates to over 60% and saves taxpayers over 1m per year, whilst continuing to provide a high quality, low cost service. We will continue to invest Section 106 contributions and seek external funding to improve our Green spaces and support the voluntary sector. Working in partnership we will strive to increase the number of our Parks which regularly attain Green Flag award status. We will invest 2.3m of capital funding in maintaining and improving over 800km of roads and footways, over 150 bridges and 100km of Public Rights of Way. Additionally, we will invest over 8m in replacing existing street lights with modern LED lighting, thus reducing energy and maintenance costs by up to 70% and 30% respectively. Thirteen

14 Engaging our communities in Trafford COMMUNITIES AND PARTNERSHIPS The need to make our contribution to reducing the inherited national debt increasingly means that partnership working - the Council working much more closely with the NHS, police, housing associations etc - is vitally important if we are not to lose some of these services. For our communities there are also an increasing number of opportunities to take greater control of how services are designed and delivered by working in collaboration with the voluntary sector, public agencies and the private sector. LOCALITY WORKING Locality Working assumes that citizens know as much if not more about what is needed in their area than public services do and that citizens through their intimate knowledge of their neighbours and neighbourhoods have good ideas about what works and what will not work in terms of delivering services. Locality Working is a very democratic approach to the way we shape our neighbourhoods and design services that make real differences. We will, through the Trafford Partnership, work to develop stronger and more resilient neighbourhoods where citizens are encouraged to take more control of the things that make a difference to their quality of life. PARTNERSHIP WORKING The Stronger Families initiative in Trafford (part of the national Troubled Families initiative) has shown that by working more cooperatively with other public agencies such as the police and housing organisations and the individual families it is possible to make positive impacts such as reducing worklessness, getting youngsters to attend school regularly and reducing domestic violence. At a time when public finances are under pressure it makes increasing sense to pool those finances to ensure the best outcomes for residents. We will work with other public sector agencies in Trafford and across Greater Manchester to maximise joint working thereby ensuring that limited finance is spent in the most effective way possible. Fourteen

15 Securing a stronger borough SAFER TRAFFORD Trafford remains the safest place to live in Greater Manchester but Police resources are also under pressure so it is important that residents do all they can to protect their property and personal belongings thereby helping to reduce levels of certain crimes. There is also an opportunity here for Trafford citizens to play a more active role in the policing of their neighbourhoods through the Special Constabulary. We will, with our partners such as the police, identify the best methods for people to keep their property secure and launch a Trafford wide campaign to provide advice and highlighting best practice. We will work with Greater Manchester Police to ensure that we recruit more Trafford citizens to the role of Special Constable to be active within Trafford. We will retain the 50% discount on Council Tax for Trafford residents that volunteer in the Special Constabulary and are located in Trafford. SPORTS AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY Within Trafford we have two internationally renowned sporting stadia: Manchester United Football Club and Lancashire County Cricket Ground. Trafford hosts the Manchester marathon. We also have a multitude of sporting clubs and organisations across Trafford. But we also have a large number of citizens who currently undertake very little physical exercise which can be detrimental to long term health. We will work, through the Trafford Sports Partnership, with all the sporting organisations in Trafford to ensure that we maximise the health benefits of physical exercise for a much larger number of Trafford residents. Promoted by Sean Anstee on behalf of Trafford Conservatives, both of Fifteen

16 Securing a stronger borough Contacts Cllr Sean Anstee Sixteen