By Ida Dalgaard Steffensen and Leo Watson
With Sheffield’s local election looming we are all getting swamped with information bogged down in detail. What exactly is each party offering?
Polling station sign. Picture via FreeFoto.com
Liberal Democrats
Starting with the party currently in possession of the most seats in Sheffield City Council, the Lib Dem’s message for their campaign is, ‘think local, vote local’. The party is asking the people of Sheffield to focus on its local achievements such as securing a £2.1bn project to repair all roads, pavements and street lights and maintaining the city’s Surestart and library services where other councils across the country have failed to do so.
Their headline policy is to keep Council Tax low after implementing a tax freeze this year. They also pledge to invest in renewable energy in order to make Sheffield self-sufficient within 10 years.
Labour
Currently one seat shy of the Liberal Democrats, Labour is widely predicted to take a council majority in this election owing to the unpopularity of the Lib Dem’s role in the national coalition. Their pledge is to protect public sector workers but are unable to reverse the two year pay freeze on council workers.
Labour has gone one step further than the Liberal Democrats and pledged a tax freeze for the financial year 2011/12. The party also promises to launch a £500,000 apprenticeship scheme and restore the ‘Activity Sheffield’ budget ensuring adventure playgrounds in Pitsmoor and Highfield do not close.
Conservative
Not a traditional strong hold for the Tories, Sheffield has been without a Conservative councillor since 2008. The Dore and Totley ward possibly provides the best opportunity to change this. Standing there is Daniel Gage, son of former Sheffield United full-back Kevin, who is promising to fight the election on what matters most to the local people, keeping grit bins full and the roads safe.
Gage and the Tories support the public spending cuts but vow to minimise its impact on public services and local people.
Green Party
The Green’s currently hold two seats in Sheffield City Council. Councillor Jillian Crease holds the seat in Central and is also the group leader for Sheffield.
Their main areas of interest are to create more jobs by closing tax loopholes and investing in energy saving as well as renewable energy. They expect this will create revenue that minimizes the direct effects of the spending cuts.
Bernard Little is standing in Broomhill ward, where the Green Party has previously been a strong second to the Lib Dems. This means that they are expecting to have a real chance of winning another seat in this year’s local elections.
UKIP
Just standing in seven wards, but after the recent by-election in Barnsley UKIP is hoping to make significant gains in this local election. They want to keep immigration low in line with the national policy and oppose any front-line cuts in the council services. Further they will empower people on local issues such as planning schemes for supermarkets and keep central government out of local government.
BNP – British National Party
Only running for two seats in the Sheffield City Council, the BNP pledges to cut council expenditures, including an end to all salaries above £100.000. Additionally they will ensure a zero tolerance policy on all crime. Unsurprisingly the BNP will also attempt to cease all further immigration, as they believe immigration overwhelms the services intended for local people. The BNP pledge to “put local people first”.
