Welcome to the fourth edition of my Insider’s blog. You can read the first-to-third editions here, here and here.

This month’s edition reports back on – amongst other things – the September “full Council”. This is where all councillors come together to hold the administration to account. Each meeting has a specific theme. The Liberal Democrat councillors got to choose the theme in September, and we chose housing.

I also cover the work we’ve been doing behind the scenes, out and about and down your street!

Galpin’s Road

Our thoughts are with all those affected by the fire and explosion on Galpin’s Road in Pollards Hill in August. Some residents still can’t return to their homes yet, and some were seriously injured, a 4 year old girl sadly died. I would like to highlight that a local charity, the Commonside Trust, did fantastic work supporting evacuated residents and maintaining a sense of community. You can donate to them here (include “Galpins” as the reference). Council and emergency staff also did an amazing job helping residents in very difficult circumstances, and they should be very proud of their work.

Housing matters – September full Council

You can watch the meeting in full here and the agenda, papers and minutes are here.

We want a Merton that works for everyone – people need a safe, affordable home. At the meeting on Wednesday 21 September, we identified five key areas where action on housing is needed:

• The Council’s dismal record on affordable housing
• Reducing rough sleeping and improving temporary accommodation
• Support for renters and tenants on repairs
• Retrofitting property as part of the Climate Emergency response
• Increasing numbers of accessible homes.

In response we were told that the Council has a “sense of urgency” on housing, and that these problems were or would be dealt with.

During our preparations for the meeting we uncovered a 2015 Council ‘task group’ on housing supply and affordable housing. It identified many of the problems and made 17 recommendations.

But seven years after the task group’s recommendations, Labour Council bosses simply haven’t done enough – the problems are still the same.

And the Council’s still run by the same people – the chair of that 2015 task group is now the leader of the Council. The person who was leader of the Council in 2015 still sits in the Council’s Cabinet, and the councillor in charge of regeneration in 2015 is the current councillor in charge of housing – a very similar role.

These people have shown us that they are not capable of implementing the change needed with the urgency required.

More affordable homes

In the midst of a housing crisis, we were shocked that Labour-run Merton Council has refused to speak to a neighbouring borough about its plans to build more genuinely affordable housing.

I feel the Labour councillor in charge of housing identified a key issue, telling assembled councillors: “No Council [administration] has built homes in this borough for 40 years … ”

The Labour party has been in control of the borough since 1990, with the exception of 4 years when the Conservatives were in charge 2006-10.

So I simply have no confidence that they are the people to sort things out.

Support for schools

For the third time this year, Labour Council bosses have rejected taking action to help local schools with energy bills.

Making it more difficult for councillors with caring responsibilities

In a shock move, Merton Council bosses have made it more difficult for councillors with caring responsibilities to fully represent residents. Frankly a bizarre decision!

Council Tax hike coming

The councillor in charge of finance revealed Labour’s plan to increase Council Tax to the max, without even looking at other options. Given the cost of living emergency, Liberal Democrat councillors had proposed examining the possibility of a Council Tax freeze or targeted rebates – but only as part of the budget process, after looking at the available Government funding and the impact on services.

Behind the scenes – active transport and the climate emergency

At the beginning of September there was a meeting of the Council’s “Sustainable Communities Panel” – this is the group of councillors that scrutinise the activities of the Council on environment, waste management, housing, sports and libraries and culture.

The September meeting was looking at cycling, active transport and the climate emergency. You can see my full Twitter thread of the meeting here. The highlight for me was councillors backing Liberal Democrat recommendations that the Council be asked to look prioritising a ‘walking and cycling masterplan’, and also implement any “quick wins” in making it easier to be a pedestrian or a cyclist.

Behind the scenes – Veolia being binned?

The Council chose the odd time of after 5pm on a Friday to issue a press release saying that its contracts for waste collection, street cleaning and recycling would not be automatically extended at the end of the contracts in 2025.

There are a number of oddities here. First is the secrecy – councillors were not informed and no opportunity to scrutinise the decision. Secondly, the announcement of the decision before Council bosses actually make it on 10 October. Lastly, it’s not a decision that Merton alone has made (although you wouldn’t appreciate that from the Council’s press release) – the 5 boroughs that buy in these services from Veolia are looking at the same decisions and recommendations.

Some of my initial thoughts are here and the process is outlined here.

We still think that a ‘waste summit’, particularly to pinpoint the areas of concern but also to begin to look potential ways forward would be best.  

Out and about

Councillors attend a number of civic and other events – particular highlights for me this time were:

• Merton’s proclamation of the accession of King Charles III, which took place on Sunday 11 September, and is available to watch online
• Meeting with Merton Centre for Independent Living to discuss their priorities and campaigns.

Down your street

As local councillors we regularly help people solve local issues and problems as well as work on local priorities. This month we have:

• Supported residents with planning and traffic issues.
• Helped get unfairly applied Penalty Charge Notices reversed.
• Ensured dangerous street trees had branches cut.
• Dealt with missed collections from flats, and reported lots of flytipping.
• …. As well as many other things – get in touch if we can help.