County Councillor Karen Constantine: A decline in performance

Cllr Karen Constantine

Figures from Thanet District Council show a decline in performance which is having a negative impact on people’s lives.

At a meeting of the Council’s Corporate Performance Review Working Party this week, subjects including litter and homelessness were discussed. The state of our streets and the rates at which issues such as homelessness are being dealt with have led to concerns by councillors in the Labour group.

Thanet residents are now paying a steep price for the incompetence of the UK’s first and last UKIP run council, which has been in place since May 2015 and is now all but defunct.

Can the Tories do better?

The baton is now being passed to the Conservatives. Given that they have spent a decade eroding public service, I don’t hold out much hope for improvements locally.

There is a lot of discussion about what needs to done to improve Thanet. This is a beautiful area with generous people but marred by low wages, an insecure labour market and a growing housing shortage. The figures speak for themselves. The impact on Thanet residents’ daily life is palpable. The only growth locally has been in misery and chaos.

The politicians that took over from the Labour administration in 2015 described themselves as UKIP, but they have gradually ‘peeled away’, defecting, standing down and splitting amongst their own ranks. All this chaos on the back of a fantasy promise of bringing back Manston Airport.

What we need are hard working district councillors who will deliver the residents’ needs. Judge for yourself.

% household waste sent for recycling
2014/1534.7%
201734.6%
Number of incidents of dumped rubbish on TDC land
2014/1535
201772
% of streets with litter below acceptable levels
2014/150.3%
201717.6%
% of streets with graffiti
2014/150.6%
20171.8%
Public opinion of street cleaning
2014/1549% satisfied or very satisfied
201731% satisfied or very satisfied
Crimes per 1000 of population
2014/1584
2017126
Average time taken to make homeless decisions
2014/1524 days
201741 days
Average days in temporary accommodation
2014/1543 days
2017133 days

Source: Thanet District Council Corporate Performance Review Working Party agenda, February 2018.

 

5 Comments

  1. I find this summary amusing, Thanet Labour are anti Manston Airport, yet the Majority of Thanet parties are pro as are the public, Kent County Council are fully supportive of the re-opening of Manston airport, as are all the regional local authorities. When we lost the airport we also lost a lot of other companies who employed locally and paid in to the tax pot. a lot of potential in our youth was also lost as there are a limited amount of employment opportunities or training now on offer to them, again when re-opened, Manston Airport will offer these opportunities and bring back some eagerly needed employment, But again the local Labour are against this. then there’s the Ramsgate Harbour which TDC under Thanet Labour messed up and cost us local tax payers a lot of money. There is a lot of potential here in Thanet to be utilised, but under Thanet Labour this will never happen.
    I am not against Labour as a party, but Thanet labour is a separate entity to the main Labour party, as the Main Labour party are as I have been told are totally supportive of the re-opening of Manston Airport.
    The figure given in this article can also be put against the Labour controlled TDC and they were worse figures then as is now. Thanks the lord Cllr Wells has also gone.

  2. Vote UKIP and this is the chaos that ensues. And yet people of Thanet did just that. Don’t they recognise how Thanet is losing its services. Social care is in peril and Margate hospital is losing its stroke service. Yet you handed the reins to a bunch of incompetent chancers

  3. Thanet Labour are the only party working for a better Thanet for all. This is obvious to see. Our MP’s want to downgrade our Hospital and all stroke victims be taken on a gruelling long drive by road to Ashford to be seen. We all know that this is not practicable but the Conservatives as usual seem to think they know better for us. Other services have already been taken!
    I don’t agree with Jeremy Corbyn on most of his manifesto so am not a Main party supporter but in Thanet you can tell Labour is working hard to improve lives for it’s residents. An airport, especially freight, bang in the middle of Thanet would not be good for anyone and it is false that thousands of jobs would be created because of it. Surely that alone tells you it is just a fanciful pipe dream. We need to get on with the plans already put before us by the owners of the site.

  4. The staffing issues are not local party related.. staff work very hard while seriously understaffed.
    Central government cut funding.
    Any party in would be in the same position.

    The services outsourced will start costing more to the locals as they are profit based. You may also get a worse service as shown historically with a number of previous outsourced services.
    Complain about bins now it was horrendously worse under vita!!

    Employing staff would sort the issues but this comes with a cost. If TDC do it. It’s non Profit for statutory services. If outsourced this will definitely not be the case. that cost will be passed onto locals.

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