Sutton Conservatives Cost of Living Plan Revealed: Average 4p a month saving per person!
As the country lurches from one crisis into another, residents of Sutton and the United Kingdom as a whole are feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis.
With 3.9million children in poverty and more food banks than McDonald’s, the country is truly in crisis as bills jump 154%, inflation is set to increase 11%, and residents have endured a decade of wage stagnation.
At the recent full Council meeting in Sutton, each party put forward their strategy to deal with the cost of living crisis. We can now reveal the impact of the Conservative solution, an average 4p a month saving, per person.
Every single Conservative Councillor voted down plans put forward by Labour to call on the Government to reinstate the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift, extend the free school meals program, remove VAT on home energy bills, and increase the windfall sum paid to those who need it most to £600. Shockingly, they also saw fit to ignore cutting small business rates, failing to help local businesses through the coming crisis.
The national Conservative government solution has been to cut Universal Credit whilst looking at ways to uncap bankers’ bonuses, increasing tax on residents to the highest level in 70 years, but only on earned income, as opposed to income accrued through assets or investments.
The local Conservatives followed suit, asking for parking charges in areas with free parking to be rolled back to previous years and implementing a temporary moratorium on parking permits in the borough.
The impact? An approximate saving of 4p per month per resident in Sutton. However, the savings aren’t applied evenly and instead would mean that roughly 3100 people could make a cost saving of £3.49 a month if Council Tax increases were not required to supplement their plan. These savings would not be applied to those that need the saving, but rather a selection of areas including Cheam, Carshalton Beeches, Worcester Park, Hackbridge and St Helier where parking controls are in place.
Leader of the Sutton Labour Group Sheldon Vestey said “When I costed their proposal I was very quickly concerned about the real world impacts and what they were ignoring in favour of this. Whilst I’m sure the reinstatement of 30 minutes of free parking in Wallington high street would benefit some people, it will not address the cost of living crisis and free parking is a 30second walk away. Our proposal of cutting small business rates would be far better for our local shops. Their other proposal to apply a moratorium on parking control costs is equally baffling and would not help those that need it most. The best case scenario is 4p a month per person if every resident paid parking control fees. The reality is it equates to £3.49 a month if we don’t expect others in Sutton to subsidies the 3100 parking controlled bays. What Labour was proposing was real-world practical measures to actually help people. It’s our duty as Councillors in Sutton to address things in any way we can, and we need the Government to reinstate the £20pw Universal Credit uplift and extend free school meals. Simply put, the Conservative position is preposterous and frankly callous.”
A new Conservative Councillor representing St Helier when asked about their voting action stated that “Encouragement to find and use and support food banks would help”, missing the point that foodbanks would not be needed if people could afford to eat, a byproduct of their own voting history.
Parking Control Moratorium Costings
The London Borough of Sutton Parking Services Annual Parking Data Report shows Resident/Visitor Parking accrues £6.99 a month per space on average across 3100 spaces.
Cutting this in half to ensure costs are covered results in a cost saving of £3.49 a month per space.
Divided between the population of Sutton (254k) this equates to a shocking 4p a month, or 12p a month per property (85k properties).
There are currently four CPZ zones operating in Sutton (Belmont, Sutton Town Centre, Longfellow Road and Wellington Avenue (including Lingfield Road).
PPA zones are now operational in Hackbridge (HB1 and HB2), Carshalton (CS1, CA1, CA2), Carshalton Beeches (CB), Cheam (CH) Aultone Way (AW), South Sutton (SS), St Helier (SH1, SH2 and SH3) and Worcester Park (WP2).
* Savings from Parking fee reductions in town centres dismissed as free parking exists.