Councillor David Ross, party leader, led the manifesto launch in Lochgelly on Monday, unveiling the pledges the party’s candidates will put to voters across the regional wards in the local government elections on May 5th. He described the manifesto as ambitious and said: “This election is all about local services and local government.”
He added: We recognise with the recovery that we need to be going in a different direction. We need to be more flexible and local services could look very different at the end of the coming council term.
Our priorities are clear. We want to tackle poverty in our communities and support vulnerable people.”
The party made 15 pledges to voters in the Kingdom. These include:
- Setting up a £10m recovery fund for local communities to be administered by local area communities
- Investing in town centres.
- Ensuring that at least 50% of council contracts going to local firms – the figure currently stands at around 40%
- Building more new, warm and well insulated, council housing
- Scrapping charges for bulky uplifts in a bid to tackle the increasing problem of fly-tipping
- Fixing Fife’s roads with a commitment to tackling potholes and repairs
- Expanding holiday meals for Fife children and families on the back of successful projects such as Cafe Inc
- Reducing the waiting times for social care packages
- Rejecting any workplace parking levy
- Opposing privatisation of council care homes
- Overhauling the committee structure and bringing in executive governance to ensure the local authority is councillor-led – area committees would continue
The manifesto launch was attended by local candidates and Cara Hilton, former Dunfermline MSP chair of Scottish Labour, who said “we have local champions standing up for local people and are on their side.”
The election on May 5th comes with a cost of living crisis – and, says Labour, increasing centralisation of services by the SNP led Scottish Government.
Picture: Manifesto launch. St Andrews Labour candidate, Rosalind Garton, is 6th from the left.
