Councillor Howard Sykes MBE

We need to sort out a long-term plan to enable councils to protect children from harm while supporting early help to prevent problems escalating in the first place.

“The ad-hoc, short-termist way national government announces funding for local services makes it impossible to plan ahead”

There is no doubt this was a tough General Election campaign – no-one likes knocking on doors on cold and dark nights.

With less than two weeks left before we go to the polls (unless you have already voted by post), we must shout from the roof-tops that we need to fund local government and local services properly.

A 93-year-old pensioner got dragged out in the pouring rain to deliver a speech she didn’t write, with policies that won’t be delivered, from a government without the numbers to govern, pushing an agenda that is ill-thought out and badly conceived.