New Green council leader Jame McAsh has said he wants to make it “more difficult” for people to drive their cars as he laid out his vision for Southwark. His plans include increasing affordable housing, tackling the climate emergency, and resisting immigration raids.
Controversial measures
McAsh acknowledged that some proposed measures will be controversial but insisted he is willing to make “difficult choices” to improve residents' lives. He told the Standard: “Londoners are dying from extreme heat, and when it comes to the winter, we'll be expecting extreme weather in other ways, flooding, etc. So we need to react to that. But being a Green is also about kind of the space that we're in.”
He added: “We want to see a lot more trees. We want to make it safer for kids to walk and cycle to school, and that means reducing traffic. It means taking action to, you know, not just make it easy to walk and cycle, but also make it more difficult to drive your car around. And sometimes those are difficult choices. But if that's what we believe, we kind of need to take those kinds of actions.”
Traffic reduction plans
Changing travel could include blocking off “rat runs” and increasing low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) and school streets. McAsh said: “Tony Benn, a hero of mine, talked about a signpost and weather vanes, and a weather vane moves around in the wind, and a signpost points the right direction. And I firmly believe that yes, we need to engage the community. Yes, we need to talk to people about how we're doing things. We also need to have something we're trying to achieve. And for me, traffic reduction is something we need to achieve.”
He emphasized benefits for children: “It's important for kids, first of all, being able to walk and cycle around safely without being run down, but also so that their lungs aren't being clogged up with poisonous gasses. It's about the climate emergency as well. It's about tackling this existential crisis that we're facing, but it's also about people's just general health and mental health.”
Coalition and housing
Labour was ousted from Southwark council in May, with the borough now run by a Green-Lib Dem coalition. McAsh is leader, with Lib Dem Victor Chamberlain as deputy. The coalition wants to support more affordable housing and reduce living costs. This includes looking at thousands of empty homes, including hundreds owned by the council, and bringing them back into use.
Over 20,000 families are on Southwark's social housing waiting list, and the council manages more than 4,000 households in temporary accommodation. McAsh, a former Labour councillor who defected to the Greens, said: “We're seeing families or couples moving out when they want to raise families, and the people who are here are having to make compromises in terms of how they live their lives. So affordability is something that runs through everything we want to achieve.”
Immigration raids
Green-run London town halls have already said they will attempt to ban officers from cooperating with Home Office immigration enforcement teams. Lewisham councillors last month approved plans to refuse assisting with illegal working raids “wherever legally possible”. McAsh said his borough had already stopped working with Home Office immigration teams.
He said: “My understanding is that by and large, we're already doing that. To be clear on that, the council does not share information regarding immigration raids or participate in immigration raids, and the only information we share is the kind of the generic statistical information that's statutorily required.”
