Member-only story
The myopia of Middle-Class Liberals #WhatNoChaiLatte
Hybrid working and the creative industries. It’s just so great. Ya?
Southend Borough Council has published it’s strategic plan — Or New Local Plan — for the borough. It’s been lurking in the municipal cupboard since 2019 but Covid-19 punted it into the long grass, however, it’s back and it makes for interesting reading:
https://yoursay.southend.gov.uk/southend-new-local-plan
It’s all about regeneration of Southend-on-Sea post-Covid-19 (Whenever that is) and looks at the current state of play in the borough and views the future with aspirational eyes. It has good analysis and talks about the usual problems. Wealth. Health, Housing and Employment. It even goes so far as to quote the ‘Principles of sustainable development — United Nations in 1992’.
If you go to the relevant website. It no longer exists: https://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21toc.htm
However you can read more here: https://www.un.org/en/development/devagenda/sustainable.shtml
Eradicating poverty, is top of the list. The irony of quoting a 30 year old document putting poverty as its number one issue, didn’t escape me.
However, the New Local Plan is well-meaning enough. Full of aspirations. Aims and objectives but precious little on exactly how they are going to pay for it and nothing on how they intend to tackle the cause of poverty, when they are in no position to do so. The stated aspiration of creating 10,000 new jobs, at the minimum wage, isn’t going to eradicate poverty. The solutions for much of this are way beyond the remit of the council to fix. They are the consequences of decades of complacent, mis-administration by Thatcherite Councillors and hostile governments, so one mustn’t be too critical. We can all applaud aspiration but what matters is how.
