Sheffield
Liberal Democrats
Shaffaq Mohammed and Hannah Kitching in front of a team of Sheffield Liberal Democrats holding orange diamonds

2024 Manifesto

Getting Sheffield Back on Track

Manifesto 24 Over-arching theme Policies ‘Listening council’ A council which engages with you; more decisions made locally and responsible management of limited resources. Listening, open, transparent. We will ensure that the public are able to make their voices heard and be treated with respect. Consultation with stakeholders and the public will happen early in the decision-making process and will remain open throughout the process. We will communicate upcoming consultations more widely. If we got something wrong, we would listen and learn. We will respond to residents’ concerns by being open and transparent about what is intended and why, and be prepared to change. We will improve the council’s website to make our services more visible and easier to find. We will shorten the time it takes for calls to be answered and responded to, including council tax enquiries. More powers, with associated budgets, will be delegated to the Local Area Committees so that decisions are taken close to communities that are affected by them. This will include small highways projects; youth services; work to support isolated and vulnerable people; funding to maintain and improve our parks and open spaces, and engagement with local business forums. Service delivery partnerships will be localised and strengthened, with an early focus on parks and green spaces. We will continue to press government for improved funding for local authorities which has been decimated in recent years. We believe that the government has forced local authorities to raise regressive council tax rather than funding vital services through general taxation. We will manage the council’s budget responsibly, ensuring better scrutiny of budget proposals and a budget that is ‘Balanced Deliverable and Honest’ ‘Regenerating our City’ Supporting local business, encouraging investment and rejuvenating the city We want Sheffield to be a great place to do business and for the city to welcome new investment. Therefore, we will ensure new businesses, and businesses hoping to relocate to Sheffield, have access to advice and support We will encourage the development of local business networks, working with the Local Area Committees, to channel investment into district shopping and business areas. We will review the council’s distribution of Community Infrastructure Levy and aim to retain more of the funding in the area local to the development to support improved the infrastructure, as we believe is the intention of the legislation. In the medium term we would use a target of 10% of the unallocated Community Infrastructure Levy money to support small business infrastructure. We will work with the business and retail community to develop the city centre and attract investment, reflecting a growing importance of leisure and culture to the city centre. We will build on previous Lib Dem successes such as the introduction of Tramlines and the food festival. We will oppose the inclusion in the Local Plan of a ban on new hot food take aways within 800m of a senior school as this ban would prevent such establishments locating in many of our shopping areas, reducing customer choice. This would affect mainly small businesses whilst allowing large chains of fast-food restaurants to continue. We will support the city’s night-time economy and help people feel safe at night and reduce anti-social behaviour by expanding the use of city ambassadors and community resilience wardens. We will establish a Council Heritage Parks and Community Assets Maintenance Fund to fully repair the Rose Garden Café in Graves Park and ensure that our city’s buildings are properly maintained, and to prevent problems such as those we have seen with Rose Garden Café, Birley Spa Bath House and Beauchief Abbey Barns from occurring again. We will ensure that wherever possible people have services such as shops and open space within easy walking / cycling distance, requiring such facilities as part of any new housing developments. We will press government for support and access available funding to revitalise our city and improve its infrastructure. ‘Transport that works’ Better public transport; evaluating the Clean Air Zone; more travel options and enabling action at a local level. We will work with the South Yorkshire Mayor to set up an integrated public transport system, including a London-style bus service, where needs of passengers determine routes and frequency, to replace Labour’s bus partnerships, which have failed to deliver for the people of Sheffield. We will press the government and the Mayoral Authority for funding to extend tram or tram-train routes. Routes which could benefit would include the Sheaf Valley, an extension to Norton and a route to the Northern General Hospital. We support the work being done to get passenger services on a line to Stocksbridge and on the Beaver Hill Line to Chesterfield. Local areas will be supported through Local Area Committees to undertake small highways projects and changes to support active travel choices and to develop local cycling and walking improvement plans for their areas, to improve road safety. We will aim to use 10% of the Community Infrastructure Levy to develop major active travel schemes to encourage cycling and walking and improve road safety We will ensure that the pollution levels in the city are monitored and used to assess the effectiveness of the Clean Air Zone which is now in place. We will continue to support people to access grants they are entitled to for upgrading vehicles. We will review transport to, and within, the city centre to ensure access for ALL and to ensure that everyone, including those in rural communities, can choose how to travel into and around the city, prioritising public transport and active travel such as cycling or walking. We will improve bus lanes to improve the reliability of buses. As part of the 2030 net zero target we will press for funding to make all buses in Sheffield fully electric. We will review and aim to improve the Sheffield Connect bus, which we helped to introduce, to enable people to travel around the city centre at no extra cost. We will work to provide e-cargo bikes to businesses who want them to enable them to reduce the number of short journeys made with vans and reduce congestion and pollution. We will investigate a new cycle hire scheme for the city using models which have worked elsewhere. We will work towards having safe cycle parking and storage at key points around the city, including at places where council services are accessed. Liberal Democrats supported the development of the Sheaf Valley Active Travel routes to provide a safer walking and cycling route to and from the city centre. We support the introduction of school streets where these are practical to reduce pollution and improve road safety near schools. We will review the Community Transport Service. Use of this service has declined since the Covid pandemic. We will raise awareness of this option for those with mobility difficulties and look to make the system more responsive. We will hold Amey to account to ensure that the highways maintenance contract is fulfilled. We will investigate options for increased park-and-ride provision to reduce congestion and make commuting to work easier for many. ‘Making Sheffield a great place to live and move towards our net zero target.’ An agreed plan for development across the city; more affordable housing; support to make homes warmer; much better recycling and promoting biodiversity. Development Sheffield needs more homes for all types of households: families, couples and single people. We will work to ensure the Local Plan is adopted, taking note of the views of Sheffield’s citizens as expressed in the 2023 consultation on the plan. We will investigate options to deliver more affordable housing, eg through shared ownership schemes and use of council owned land. Nationally the Liberal Democrats policy would give local authorities control over the Right to Buy option in their areas. This may be used to reduce the loss of council housing, which all too often is sold on to private landlords without the same maintenance or tenant support. We will press government for funding to clean up the brownfield sites in our city to reduce pressure on our green spaces. We support the proposed Local Plan in its aims to use brownfield sites wherever possible for new development and to preserve the undeveloped land in the Green Belt. We will support developments aimed at older people and others who need homes for semi-independent living in all parts of the city, enabling them to downsize and remain in the communities they know. Our Environment We want the council to provide access to advice and information for all householders on the options to insulate and heat their homes to give them confidence in making the changes needed, such as relatively simple insulation of mid-terrace passageways. This will help to meet the city’s aim to be carbon neutral by 2030 and reduce fuel poverty, which has become a major issue for many of Sheffield’s citizens. In the medium term we will use a target of 20% of the Community Infrastructure Levy for infrastructure that will help to mitigate the effects of climate change, eg flood defences, improved moorland management and tree planting. We will make use of all available options to increase the number of electric vehicle charging points to make switching to an electric car an option for many more people. We aim to support business to introduce these facilities at workplaces. We will investigate options for alternative power sources and support the expansion of the city’s District Heating Networks. We will introduce a warden scheme to equip volunteers to support their communities during bad weather (snow, ice, flooding) and help with adaptation to the effects of climate change. We will improve the recycling facilities in the city and range of waste that can be recycled. to include We look to introduce city -wide food waste recycling at the earliest opportunity, building on the earlier Lib-Dem-led trial. We would offer an option of larger blue bins for paper/card recycling for those who want them. Longer term we aim to increase the opening hours of recycling centres and introducing a bottle return scheme. We aspire to be among the top councils for recycling rather than in the bottom 25%. We will investigate how to make the recycling / bring sites more accessible to reduce the scourge of fly-tipping. We will support projects to improve biodiversity across the city and encourage community groups to be involved, building on our work to allow wildflowers to grow on grass verges and other green spaces. We will work with our contractors and the Street Tree Partnership to plant more trees on our highways as well as in our parks and open spaces. We would create a ‘Greener Sheffield’ fund to be available to local communities for improvements to their local environments. We will support community groups who do an excellent job in working in our parks, open spaces and allotments to keep these areas a great asset for residents to use. We will prioritise initiatives to clean up our streets, tackling fly tipping, litter, graffiti and pest control through the Local Area Committees, with additional funding to the LAC budgets as finances allow. Libraries. We will provide our volunteer-run libraries with additional resources to support them in delivering a fantastic service for our neighbourhoods. ‘Supporting all Sheffield’s people’ Support to address the Cost of living Crisis; council homes to be fully used and in better repair; help for private tenants. Support for the young; for carers and the vulnerable and older people in our communities. Cost of living We will act across the council’s services to support those struggling to make ends meet. We will increase support for organisations, including Citizens Advise Bureaux (CAB), to help people manage their finances, access the support they are entitled to receive and signpost people to services they need. We will also encourage the expansion of face-to-face CAB support for those who need it. Housing Nationally the Liberal Democrats’ housing policy would ensure rent can only rise by a fair amount each year, rent smoothing over a tenancy and the banning of no-fault evictions. It also aims for new homes to be built to zero carbon standards and includes a national target to build 150,000 social homes per year. A 10-year emergency programme should be brought in to insulate Britain’s homes We will increase the support for tenants in private-sector housing to address issues faced by an increasing number of people, including poor maintenance of their homes. There are currently around 7000 empty homes in Sheffield across all tenures. We will Incentivise owners to get them back into use through rent or purchase. We will address the excessive number of council homes which are empty and reduce the length of time taken to turn around vacated properties. This is essential to reduce the number of families who have to live in emergency accommodation for too long. We will reduce waiting times for housing repairs and give housing tenants the right to directly employ an approved contactor if repairs are not carried out within an agreed time frame. We will press for an Alternative Dispute Resolution Scheme, which will enable tenants to receive compensation without incurring the cost of legal representation and provide an alternative to using lawyers. Young people Children deserve the best possible start in life, and we will support families to provide this. We will investigate ways to improve access to Family Centres. We will improve the services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, who currently face long delays in assessment and in obtaining the support they need. We will address the issues faced by young people with additional needs or disabilities as they transition to adult services. Liberal Democrats nationally have called for increased support for kinship carers who step in to look after a family member’s child when their parents cannot do so, recognising this vital role. We will provide under-18s who care for someone with free bus passes, to let them enjoy their social life and undertake their caring responsibilities more easily, as Sheffield Young Carers has called for. We will deliver a city-wide youth provision, including direct services, and development officers to work with third-sector provision, depending on local need. The service will be monitored through the LACs. We will encourage LACs to keep a comprehensive list of all youth services in the community to help people looking for options in their area. We will promote apprenticeships as a positive career choice for local people and a positive investment for employers. Older people and those needing extra support We believe that the government’s current approach to the funding of social care is unsustainable and places disproportionate demands on places such as Sheffield with a relatively low council tax base but high level of need. Liberal Democrats have called for an increase in the minimum wage for care staff to help address major staffing shortages which leave families without adequate support. We want to see proper accreditation of their skills and investment in their training. In line with national Lib Dem policy, we will press the government to raise Carer's Allowance for unpaid carers. We will work through the LACs to improve how we identify and engage people who are isolated to co-ordinate offers of support, where that is wanted, and improve awareness of those groups who are seldom heard within our communities. We would encourage the LACS to: work to support those who are ‘digitally’ excluded, to help them obtain the skills to benefit from the use of information technology engage with the NHS to facilitate social prescribing options support play areas and accessible facilities for children Support outdoor education options provide skills support for older people support events for all our diverse community taking into account the specific needs and requests of their local population. Download File