It’s been an honour and a privilege to lead the city I love over the past year.
Leading Brighton and Hove City Council is a huge commitment, which is why I left my job to take on this role full-time and I have no regrets about that.
I’m so lucky to call this city home and it is with great pride that I have led the city council, putting progressive policies into action and representing Brighton and Hove at a regional and national level.
I am proud of the achievements of the Labour administration, both since 2015 and of the manifesto that we stood on in the local elections.
Since May 2019 we continued to prioritise building more homes, including council and affordable housing.
We set up a climate assembly to achieve our goal of becoming a carbon neutral city by 2030 and it’s essential this work continues.
We helped steer the city through an unprecedented public health crisis and focused our efforts on economic recovery, backing our local businesses and supporting our most vulnerable residents.
We mustn’t forget that during such hard times many people in our city are not interested in party political differences – they are forced to focus on the basics like keeping a roof over their head and ensuring their kids don’t go hungry.
We must continue to support our food banks and the most disadvantaged in our society.
We made disabled bus passes available to use 24/7, set up a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community engagement fund, rolled out more electric vehicle charging points and e-cargo bikes, distributed grants to youth projects around the city and lobbied government for rent control powers and further support for small businesses.
Now, it is important to bring the city together – at this time of public health and economic crisis – and enable a smooth transition of administration to the largest party.
The Labour group will play our part in handing over and supporting the new Green administration get to grips with leading the council at such a difficult time.
We are committed to putting the interests of residents and businesses of the city before party politics.
We will build on our work to create a fairer city, with a sustainable future, and continue to serve our residents, from opposition, by holding the new administration to account and working co-operatively and constructively with them.
Councillor Nancy Platts is the leader of the Labour opposition on Brighton and Hove City Council.
How about an apology for the antisemitism & hurt that’s been caused and an apology for not dealing with the issue sooner?
Perhaps it would be worth spending some money improving “the city you love” .. It is dirty , there are homeless people everywhere , overflowing bins , dirty pavements , boarded shops etc etc. I have lived here for 22 years and this used to be a city I loved… it is a city that needs cleaning , bigger infrastructures , we pay a lot of council tax , we pay city prices for everything and yet we don’t have any of the advantages!!!
Martin Amis recalls John Gross saying to him that a paragraph should not begin with the same word as another one in the vicinity. Alas, cllr Platts’s article fails this sound rule with its continual use of “We”.
http://www.christopherhawtree.com
But you don’t, nor have any of those in council and never have. Party loyalties do not allow collaborative political administration or free thought. The system puts party against party, ideas are opposed simply on party lines and the city and its residents ALWAYS come last, deals are done behind closed doors and long standing animosity towards the opposition (even the term “opposition” promotes such hostility) #brokenpolitics #independentsforbrighton