AT LAST - A LABOUR VOICE MAKES ITSELF HEARD

                                                                                     

Cllr Hyldon-King: 'Let's care more for vulnerable children and the elderly"

                                

A LONG-serving Labour member of North East Lincolnshire Council has rapped the Tory administration for overlooking the borough's social problems in favour of economic regeneration.

The Labour group leadership has been almost entirely silent since losing control of the authority in  May last year.

But now Yarborough ward representative Cllr Jane Hyldon-King has decided to speak out, describing the current administration as "moribund and shallow".

She maintains that many of the ongoing regeneration initiatives were launched by a Labour-led council, under the leadership of Ray Oxby, which, at the same time,  never lost sight of such social issues as affordable housing.

She says the Tory approach to problems, for instance antisocial behaviour, is to address only the symptoms, not the causes, thereby "moving the problems elsewhere".

Demands Cllr Hyldon-King: "Why are hearing no mention of the need to safeguard and support the elderly and vulnerable children?

"Why are we hearing nothing about public health inequalities across our borough? 

"How can it be right that those living in affluent wards, for instance representing Wolds parishes, have a life expectancy of 11 years longer than those living in poorer wards such as East Marsh?"

The Grimsby News says: Whatever one's political point of view, it is good that a Labour councillor has spoken out. Ms Hyldon-King's party has spent too long licking its wounds in the wake of its defeats in local and national elections. So far in 2020, there has hardly been a peep out of it. This is bad for democracy. There needs to be a robust opposition locally as well as nationally. Here's hoping the Yarborough ward representative's forthright comments will serve as a much-needed wake-up call to her party colleagues.