A Fairer Deal on Crime Prevention: We will continue to campaign for increased support for the Westbourne Safer Neighbourhoods Police team, including more time on the beat at evenings and weekends. We back preparations for a Group Dispersal Zone that if necessary with resident’s approval would give the police more power to break up gangs. We call on the council to end its opposition to recorded CCTV where local residents want it and to use the council’s 100 mobile cameras to tackle crime – not just to chase motorists. We will push for more action against tenancies of those committing crime and anti-social behaviour.

Fairness for Young People: We will continue to work to improve the Westbourne Park Youth Project on the Brunel Estate and the Millennium Centre on the Amberley Estate. We call on Westminster to reverse its funding cut for the Meanwhile Gardens Play hut and would look to use the ward budget to help keep it open if necessary. We campaigned for and funded the games area being built on Elmfield Way and will press for a permanent play area there. We will also work to find new ways to use the Academy Sport facilities and the Stowe Centre in the evenings and at weekends to give young people something more to do.

Fairness for Residents: We will fight to ensure that residents are consulted and have the final say over the council’s plans to redevelop their estates. We want family flats for rent built on sites like North Wharf Road and Edgware Road next to Paddington Green. We are campaigning to protect secure tenancies from Conservative plans to scrap them and raise rents to private sector levels. We are pushing for better management of estate offices to give residents a better response to their concerns.

Fairness for Leaseholders: We pledge to continue working with leaseholders who are challenging their bills and to seek a cap on all major works bills. The Conservative-run council should have re-clad the Warwick and Brindley tower blocks 20 years ago when it would have been cheap to do. Now leaseholders are faced with enormous bills.

A Cleaner, Greener Westbourne: Westbourne has some fine open spaces and we pledge to make sure they are protected and cared for. During the past two years, we have used ward budget money to fund a community gardening scheme with Groundwork and we will introduce more dog bins and ensure that pavements are repaired promptly.

Your Westminster Labour team (council candidates Councillor David Boothroyd, Councillor Papya Qureshi and Adam Hug, with your member of Parliament Karen Buck MP) are fighting for the voices of residents on the Warwick, Brindley and Amberley Estates to be heard as the Conservative-controlled Council widens the scope of its controversial plans to redevelop estates in Westminster to include these areas.

Residents on the Brunel Estate have organised to resist Council plans for major redevelopment that would cause serious disruption, including moving many out of their homes. Westminster’s plans seem to focus on building new properties for sale at market rates and other options for those on above average incomes, making current residents understandably fear for their homes. As residents’ action has threatened their plans on Brunel, the Council is turning its attention to the estates on ‘Westbourne Green- Warwick, Brindley and Amberley – where Labour fears they plan to pursue the same approach. 

Westbourne Labour thinks that the Council has got its priorities wrong and should focus its efforts on: improving the conditions and maintenance of the current estates; building more council properties, particularly for families, to tackle the overcrowding and waiting lists (Labour councillors also always press for new private housing developments across Westminster to include some large flats for Council rent, but the council usually waives the requirements on developers to do this); and working with residents on action to make people feel more secure, such as CCTV.

Adam Hug says “Westbourne’s Labour campaign team think the council has a duty to spell out their plans for the Warwick, Brindley and Amberley and make sure they consult properly with local residents before taking any action. Whatever the council has planned for these estates and the Brunel Labour believes that local residents must have the final say on what happens to their estates, regardless of what any political party thinks.”