SouthThanet Labour Party |
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Working for you! |
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· A and E facilities at all our local hospitals have been refurbished. There has been a big rebuilding programme at the QEQM. New breast screening facilities have been installed at the Kent and Canterbury. At the William Harvey in Ashford and the QEQM there is new MRI equipment and at the QEQM every woman referred for possible breast cancer now sees a specialist within two weeks. Waiting lists across the board have been slashed and our East Kent hospitals are doing more operations and procedures than ever before. Another big investment programme is now on its way at the Kent and Canterbury.
· Broadstairs Chandos Gardens and the Viking Bay cliff top area has been substantially refurbished by programmes started under the Labour Council. And there is a cliff side lift serving the beach – something Tory councils talked about for years but Labour delivered.
· Thousands of children in Kent are now in smaller classes. Every school in the constituency has seen improvements and every secondary school has been or will be completely rebuilt or refurbished. The Cartwright and Kelsey in Ash is one school that has been rebuilt. The Ramsgate School has been replaced by the new Marlowe Academy thanks to private investments of around £2million and about £20million from the Government. Ellington and Hereson Schools are in a new building as is St Georges. Modernisation is underway at Dane Court and Charles Dickens and the modernisation of Sandwich Technology School, Roger Manwoods and the new Federation of Ramsgate Grammar Schools (Clarendon and Chatham House Schools) are in the planning stage.
· York Street in Ramsgate has been rebuilt after years of Tory neglect. The Tories talked about it but left it derelict. Labour delivered!
· Thousands of South Thanet families are better off because of the National Minimum Wage and Tax Credit credits.
· Ramsgate East Seafront has been modernised (see picture below) and there are two new amenity blocks and a new £1.4million Western Marina is now open. All done by Labour. · 10,000 South Thanet families are better off thanks to Labour's record Child Benefit increase.
· Ramsgate's King Street refurbishment was started by Labour.
· Unemployment in South Thanet has been slashed since 1997
· About a thousand South Thanet youngsters have started work with New Deal. The Tories have said they will scrap New Deal.
· Labour's work for rural communities included powers that allowed Sandwich to have 20MPH speed controls in the Town.
· 22% of South Thanet’s citizens are pensioners and they are all better off thanks to the Winter Fuel Allowance and the cut in VAT on fuel. Many are also better off thanks to the Minimum Pensioner Income Guarantee, the Pensioner Credit and the free TV license for the over 75s.
· Ramsgate Sports Hall is now open. The Tories said it would never be built. Labour built it.
· When Sandwich Sports Hall closed in August 2002 local residents came to Steve Ladyman for help. Steve formed a new board of trustees to run the charity that owned the Sports Hall and together they raised about £500,000 for its refurbishment. Now the luxury facility is open again and doing great. There is also an all weather sports pitch at the School that would not have been built without Steve’s help.
· Assisted Area Status and European Objective II funding have been renewed. £10 million extra has been awarded through SRB. These funding streams will rebuild South Thanet’s infrastructure, expand utilities and train people for work. And Sandwich has been included in the area eligible for support.
· Thanks to Labour there are now three serviced business parks in South Thanet and all have new factories.
· Manston Business Park is now home to Cummins, and 300 local jobs were saved by the companies move from Richborough. Under the Tories only cabbages grew on the business park.
· Eurokent Business Park is now home to SAGA. Hundreds have people now work there.
· Thanet Reach has several occupants - high tech. businesses attracted to Thanet by Labour. Most important of all – its now home to Thanet Campus, our own university college, and the Kent Innovation Centre. Both built with money from the Labour Government on land donated by the Labour Council. The Tories called Thanet Reach a white elephant - Labour used it to build a University!
· There is a new Community Bus Service in Thanet and many new bus routes in Kent funded by Government grants. The new DART bus scheme linking Deal, Sandwich and Thanet has been given £453,000 to get started. Thanet LOOP is a major new regular bus service for the people of Thanet and the Dover Diamond is growing fast—both were made possible by Government grants.
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· When the Tories privatised the railways Kent’s trains were left in the disastrous hands of Connex. The Government intervened and they returned to Government control while the franchise was reviewed. Now they are run by SouthEastern Trains. In the years since Connex were ‘fired’ the service has made massive improvements and is now much more reliable and comfortable. The ultimate dream, however, was always a fast train service to London and it started in December 2009! The Government allowed East Kent trains to use the CTRL line and ordered 29 trains from Hitachi. The Tories said that there would never be a high speed train in Kent— Labour disagreed and now Ramsgate to London is just 76minutes. |
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We have had a Labour Government in Westminster since 1997. Between 1995 and 2003 we had Labour Councils in Thanet and Dover.
The Labour government has an unprecedented record of achievement. We now have record numbers of doctors and nurses and a record building programme in the NHS; a record number of Police on our streets and crime is falling; after the disastrous Tory recessions of the 80s and early 90s it was Labour that rebuilt the economy and kept it growing every year until the global recession of 2009 hit us and then we steered the country through that recession and prevented the collapse of the banking system; interest rates are a fraction of what they were under the Tories and the crippling effects of high mortgage rates and negative equity that were the scourge of Tory Britain are things of the past; and our schools are getting their best ever results and we have a record number of teachers and the biggest ever school building programme.
Click here for 50 national achievements from the Labour Government
Click here to see what Hansard records as Labour delivery for South Thanet since 2000
Or
Click here to see what it means in pictures
The list of achievements in Government since 1997 is huge—but we’ve done our best to list them on pages that you can access by clicking the links below: Labour’s key achievements 1997 - 2010 Improving the nation’s health, education and transport system. Beating crime. Delivering for Science. Making the asylum and immigration system work. And you should also click here for more on Labour and the NHS
So what has this meant right here in South Thanet?
We no longer have Labour councils in Thanet and Dover, but many of the developments we see around the towns and villages of South Thanet today were the result of decisions taken before 2003. And, of course, both Councils still benefit from the record levels of central government investment provided from Westminster. So for just some of the local improvements that wouldn’t have happened without a Labour Government and Labour councillors, read on: |
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· Phase 1 of East Kent Access, the road between Richborough Power Station and the Sandwich bypass, is now open thanks to funding from the Labour Government. This road upgrade means that a key obstacle to Pfizer's success has been removed and the Richborough corridor can be opened up for investment and economic regeneration.
· KCC has been given £81m by the Labour Government to build phase 2, providing a new link from Ramsgate to the Sandwich by-pass and to the Prospect Inn roundabout. Building is underway and when complete (in 2012) Ramsgate and the Pfizer site will have a dual carriageway link to the trunk road network. |
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None of these gains happened by accident—they required hard decisions from a determined Labour Government, its leaders Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown, a local Labour MP and Labour councillors. Almost every one of those decisions was opposed by Tory and Liberal Democrat teams! The picture shows Steve Ladyman discussing South Thanet issues with the former Prime Minister. |
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Each of the new trains has 354 seats and at 140MPH are the fastest domestic trains in UK service.
The trains arrive at the new multi £billion St Pancras International for a quick change onto mainline trains to the North or onto any of 6 underground lines. |
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To contact us:
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Labour Party Office:
30 Newington Rd., Ramsgate, Kent, CT12 6EE
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More good news on rail
Network Rail have confirmed that the track and signals around Thanet are to be upgraded from 2010. That will mean we get an even more reliable train service.
Since 1997 the whole of the Kent rolling stock has been replaced, since the end of 2009 the new Hitachi high speed trains have been in operation and by 2010/11, we will have a completely new East Kent railway!!
That’s a stark contract to the underinvestment that Kent’s railways suffered under the Tories.
Now we need to see the trains running even faster between Ramsgate and Ashford for an even quicker journey—and that’s one of Labour’s key local campaigns. |
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Delivery from Labour up to 2010 |
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Email: South Thanet Labour Party |
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