Tomorrow we go to the polls and cast our vote to decide how our local communities will be run.
Thanks to County Hall’s efforts to improve value for money – including reducing the number of administrative offices from 49 to 12, combating duplication, sharing costs through cross-county collaboration and other such efficiency savings – West Sussex County Council has secured £79 million of savings in the past three years for taxpayers.
Despite this efficiency drive, West Sussex County Council has still been able to: invest in modern Waste & Recycling facilities; support the transition of 27 schools into Academies; increase the West Sussex Big Society Fund to £330,000; provide £8.25 million for drainage schemes and road improvements; afford £600,000 for Manor Royal infrastructure improvement works; and finance £50 million for school building projects, notably targeted towards improving and expanding classroom space.
Perhaps most importantly of all, at a time when most hard working families’ incomes are stretched, County Hall has funded a three year council tax freeze despite it equating to a nine per cent reduction in council funds over the same period.
In addition, West Sussex County Council has been ranked as 17th out of 1,301 organisations for energy efficiency by the Environmental Agency in a recent national league table. Indeed, investment in the Government’s Green Deal has already helped to improve the energy efficiency of thousands of homes across the County.
If re-elected, Conservative County councillors will continue to liaise closely with area business to ensure that Crawley remains the region’s engine room for economic growth and job creation, which has so far seen thousands of new jobs being created locally and firms such as Tesco’s, Nestle, Vent-Axia, Thales UK and Thameslink establishing new services in Crawley.
This success is evident from a recent Santander UK Town & City Business Index report that ranks Crawley as fourth best placed nationally for enterprise, talent, connectivity & cost and as having the fourth highest economic wellbeing in the UK.
To ensure value for money and quality of local council services, vote Conservative tomorrow.
Henry Smith MP