As long as you are on the electoral roll all you need to do on polling day (May 3^rd 2012) is to turn up at your polling station and give your name and address and you’ll be able to vote.

Finding your polling station:

The council website has details of polling stations that can be downloaded here in PDF format – you can download the free Adobe Reader software at http://get.adobe.com/reader/ if you can’t open the polling stations list.

Julie Wright has joined Junab Ali and Bob Wright as part of the Central Labour Action team who will be standing for election in Central.

Julie has a wide depth of experience working with and representing the residents of Central. For the past 15 years she has assisted and supported the residents of Swindon and Central as a caseworker for the South Swindon MPs Julia Drown and Anne Snelgrove.

An introduction to Julie

I am delighted to continue to work for the residents of Central. Through casework I have built up many good relationships and friendships across the ward. In these tough times Labour’s beliefs and values are now needed more than ever, to protect the vulnerable and the poor, to ensure the local economy grows, to provide opportunities, to build housing and to keep the streets safe and clean.

Too many times the Tories have by-passed communities on key decisions. We will consult, listen and represent the views of Swindon residents.

The Tories have cut bus and care services and have failed to tackle effectively fly tipping, litter, dogs mess, pot holes and noise. Instead they have chosen to waste money on ‘pie in the sky’ projects such as wi-fi, the Canal project and the Tabernacle stones.

You can contact the Central Labour Team via email on centrallabourteam@gmail.com

Derique said “Since taking the job back in 2009 I’d always intended for my spell to be a stop-gap, in order to put Labour in Swindon back on the right track. And I believe that’s exactly what I’ve done in my spell as leader.  The public won’t necessarily know the stresses and time pressures of being a local party leader, and to be honest, taking on the job has taken a toll on my family life.  Despite this, I’ve always made sure I’ve done my job as leader of the opposition to the best of my ability. This can be shown by my attendance record, which is 100 per cent.  Once I’ve handed over the keys of the Labour group office to a new leader, I intend to take a break,  and then get back to representing the wonderful people of Central ward.  One of the things I’ve found is my wife has been like a political widow.  She hasn’t had a husband, that’s how I’d describe it.  My children and grandchildren paid a heavy price with me not being able to spend time with them…the pressure on family life is unbelievable.”

Derique is a former British Leyland engineer. In 26 years as a T&G trade union plant convener he represented thousands of workers, and has been a Councillor since 1979 – representing both Moredon and Central wards.  He took over the role of Group Leader in August 2009.   Many thanks for these years of service to the Labour Party and to Swindon Derique, RIGHT!

Caption: one of many groups which remembers Derique fondly is the Swindon Ocotal Link (SOL) which last year presented him with parchment to commemorate the role he has played for 20 years in the twinning link with Ocotal. During that time he has helped “strengthen the ties of solidarity, cooperation, love and friendship” between the two communities. The picture shows Derique and Bruce Clarke, Chair of SOL.

Since the 2010 General and Local elections, the political landscape of Swindon has changed.   In both Swindon North and Swindon South Conservatives have been elected MPs.  Labour gained two borough seats from the Tories,  but the Conservative party is still dominant.   Since the 2010 elections your Labour Councillors have facilitate local campaigns organised by local people against the Tory & Liberal Democrat cuts and have listened to Swindon residents.

What we have found is that the vast majority of Swindon residents are uneasy about their job security and their children’s futures.  They are anxious about housing, they are concerned about the future of their town and its reputation and they are concerned that fairness is not at the heart of their government and their local Council.

Jobs, Housing, regeneration and fairness are all Labour values and the Swindon Labour Party pledges to address these concerns.  With jobs, we will be trying to attract the jobs of the future, using Council-tax payers’ money more efficiently in-house, rather than wasting Council-tax payers’ money on external consultants and independent bodies outside of the town and we pledge to bring a university to the town.

With housing, we aim to make homes in the town more affordable by pushing for further housing developments in conjunction with a Council-house building program.  With regeneration, we will establish a clear, understandable plan and will not make the same mistakes of the past and build the white elephants of the future.  And with fairness, we will be ensuring that Council-tax payers’ money is spent on frontline services by driving out waste and inefficiency.

The Swindon Labour Party’s 2011 manifesto is the critical agenda Swindon needs right now, delay would mean lost jobs, lost housing, lost regeneration and lost communities.  This is something your Labour Councillors aren’t prepared to accept.

Labour’s four core priorities priorities for Swindon are:

• Jobs
• Housing
• Regeneration
• Fairness

First and foremost, we opposed the Conservatives budget because of the high risk strategy the Conservative Group have adopted in budgeting for the protection of the vulnerable.

We have seen this with the privatisation of the Council’s home care service, sacrificing the quality of care for Swindon’s 90 most vulnerable people in order to save £900,000. However right across the Social Services budget, the amount of savings that have needed to be made are so challenging that I would argue this budget is tearing apart at the seams and could lead to devastating consequences.

We are also seeing the high risk strategy the Conservatives have adopted through their decision to make 20% cuts to SureStart- a service designed to help some of the most vulnerable families across Swindon. However with £3.2 million being cut from the Children’s Services budget, Swindon Borough Council is at risk of losing touch with our town’s young, who are really hurting with Swindon’s high child poverty and youth unemployment levels.

The second reason why the Labour Group opposed the Conservative administration’s budget is because, despite all the cuts, they continue to waste millions of pounds of Council-taxpayers money each year on vanity projects and non-essential spending.

Take the Forward Swindon Regeneration Company. This receives £750,000 of Swindon Council-tax payers’ money each year.  Should Swindon Council-tax payers’ be spending this level of money each year on a bureaucratic and unaccountable quango?  This is a simple question, yet one that the Conservative administration refused to answer when the Labour Group posed it.

Another area of Council spending this Conservative administration refuses to talk about is its publication of the Swindon Borough Council newspaper.  Two weeks ago Eric Pickles asked why local authorities, like Swindon Borough Council, weren’t reducing or even ending their Council-taxpayer funded newspaper.  Again, this is a simple question that this Conservative administration fails to address.

It would be wrong for me to say that if Labour were in administration we would not make cuts.  However the Labour Group would never produce a budget where cuts to the young, the elderly and the vulnerable are being made over cuts to hospitality, Council-taxpayer funded newspapers and bureaucratic local quangos.

Cllr Derique Montaut, Swindon Labour Group Leader, Central Ward.

Caption: Derique with Caroline Flint, Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government