Our 2021 Manifesto

Our Values lead to our Promises.

We Promise…

Compassion:

• • We will ensure families don’t have to fight for their entitlements. We will support children with special needs and their families by investing in SEND provision closer to home
  • We will invest properly in school places local to residents and re-furbish existing school buildings to bring them up to required standards.
  • We will take adult social care back in-house where required, to provide an equitable and safe provision for the elderly, while still pressing central government to provide a fully funded national solution.
  • We will ensure Children’s services are the best they can be and vulnerable families and their children are safe and well cared for

Competence:

• • We will ensure SCC secures a reputation for being effective; we will cut back office costs and high salaries to ensure value for money and to pay for new services
  • We will ensure competent contract management and enforcement so services are quality assured the first time- pot holes to stay fixed, verges cut at the right time, responses to emergencies are timely and effective.
  • We will work with communities to ensure efficiency not duplication

Communities:

• • We will rebuild youth services, especially in left behind areas
  • We will empower communities to take decisions closer to home
  • We will ensure libraries become all round community hubs supporting the community and learning from Covid relief programmes
  • We will ensure community spaces, under local management, support the most vulnerable
  • We will invest in our fire service and restore cuts to cover where required
  • We will invest in road safety measures in light of local needs

Climate:

• • We will take urgent action to get to carbon neutrality by 2030, in joint plans with local councils
  • We will ensure public buildings are efficient and where possible generate their own electricity
  • We will invest in better and more usable cycle provision, public transport and electric vehicle charging points
  • We will curb investment in fossil fuels
  • We will bolster local flood prevention and hold drainage and sewage bodies to account

Our 2017 Manifesto

We are committing to build a “Caring, Connected, Climate Friendly” Surrey through:

Introducing 20mph speed limits outside schools where supported by the local community and 40mph speed limits on rural lanes.

Promoting DriveSmart and CycleSmart: balancing the rights of residents to live in and cyclists to ride through our area.

Ensuring all drains are mapped and improving the regular jetting programme to prevent blockages and improving flood defenses.

Enhancing the programme to improve both roads and footways and using quieter road surfaces close to where people live.

Increasing the opening hours of youth centres and developing detatched youth provision in the rural areas.

Opposing new runways at both Gatwick and Heathrow and supporting Crossrail 2 and HS2 to promote travel by train.

Ensuring the Surrey Superfast Broadband project delivers superfast broadband to all homes in the county.

Support voluntary organisations that provide vital social services and reverse the recent increases in care charges.

Reinstate the opening hours of the recycling centres and remove charges for dumping all residential waste.

Improve bus services and ensure that transport is provided to children in rural areas to get to the school of their choice.

Ensure children with special needs can be educated in appropriate schools within the county and that all children have places at local schools.

Our 2013 Manifesto

Roads and Transport

Resurface more roads and implement more flood prevention schemes.

Repair potholes, signs, and bollards more quickly and to a higher standard.

Extend the roads to be gritted and introduce grit bins where they are needed

Ensure roads have appropriate speed limits, not just the national default speed limit, and promote 20 mph speed limits near schools and in residential areas where supported by local residents.

Support on-street residents’ parking schemes where desired by residents.

Oppose on-street parking charges in market towns and large villages.

Introduce more frequent bus services, especially in rural areas, co-ordinated with rail services where possible.

Work with other organisations to increase community transport.

Children & Young People

Improve the standard of education for all children, targeting the one third of primary school pupils OFSTED says are receiving less than a “good” standard of education.

Improve school place planning and provide sufficient school places and classrooms where they are needed.

Improve school transport and involve schools in ensuring necessary school transport is provided.

Improve the standard of children’s social services from the current “inadequate” to “good” and then to “outstanding” by attracting highly qualified social workers to Surrey.

Provide increased support for families in need, including respite care and increased in-county facilities for children with special needs.

Protecting the Environment

Protect the countryside, including the green belt, from inappropriate development and safeguard wildlife and wildlife habitats.

Oppose expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and smaller Surrey airports.

Promote recycling of general waste, provide county-wide recycling of organic waste, continue to oppose mass burn incineration, and dispose of remaining waste in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

Improve the energy efficiency of County Council buildings.

Vulnerable People

Increase early support, advice and information for vulnerable people and their carers.

Make respite care more widely available for carers.

Retain County Council residential care homes for those with the highest and most complex needs.

Local Services

Keep all libraries open and run by qualified librarians.

Maintain youth facilities with no youth centre closures or reduction in facilities, provide youth cafes in Surrey’s towns and provide outreach youth services in local communities.

Improve accessibility and ensure consistently good adult education services across the county.