Our priorities for Wandsworth

1. Investing in our local high streets

Our high streets are the heart of our communities and the backbone of our local economy, but empty shops and identikit retailers undermine their vitality. We will improve the street scene on our high streets, work with Business Improvement Districts and use new Council powers — such as high street rental auctions — to tackle empty units. Lib Dems want to ensure that Wandsworth continues to be the best place in London to invest in and start a business. We are also pushing the Government to go further by scrapping business rates entirely. The broken business rates system is a tax on investment, employment and growth that disproportionately penalises our local retail, leisure and hospitality economy. The Liberal Democrats would replace it with a commercial landowner levy. 

2. Improving safety in our neighbourhoods

Residents witness brazen acts of car crime, parcel theft, break-ins, anti-social behaviour and organised shoplifting everyday — too often these crimes go unsolved. We will focus on more visible neighbourhood policing and reducing CCTV blackout spots and poorly lit areas that give crime somewhere to hide. Lib Dems will continue challenging the Met to keep officers on our streets rather than being pulled away to police events in central London.

With strong support from local residents, the Lib Dems saved Lavender Hill police front counter from closing, ensuring that residents can still walk in to seek help and report crime face-to-face in our Borough.

Did you know? Nine out of ten vehicle-related thefts in our city go unsolved. Lib Dems are calling for a new specialist team, based at the National Crime Agency, which could pool data from automatic number plate recognition cameras, insurance records and intelligence from police forces to target organised crime networks. 
 

3. Standing up for our green spaces

Our parks and green spaces are the jewels in Wandsworth's crown and we'll fight to keep them that way. We'll stand firm against the over-commercialisation of our parks, ensuring they are accessible for residents to use for sport, relaxation and leisure. We'll work with the Council to fill the 3,200 empty tree pits across our streets and parks, improving air quality and biodiversity while giving us streets to be proud of.

4. Clamping down on litter and fly-tipping

Dirty streets are letting our neighbourhoods down and too many residents are tired of seeing the same fly-tipping hotspots ignored while litter builds up between street cleans. We will move street cleaning days to coincide with bin collection days and put more litter bins on busy streets. We’ll introduce a regular schedule of power-cleaning on our high streets, tougher enforcement of dog fouling, greater bin provision on housing estates and a crackdown on fly-tipping in persistent hotspots. 

5. Fixing our pavements and potholes

Broken pavements are causing real harm — falls, injuries and broken bones. Our Freedom of Information request uncovered that Wandsworth Council has forked out nearly half a million pounds compensating injured pedestrians over the last three years. Lib Dems will fix the worst of our streets and pavements so that they're safe for everyone. Lib Dems will also resurface broken roads rather than temporarily patching up potholes - a false economy that has left Wandsworth's roads rated ‘red’ by the Department for Transport recently despite record high investment.

6. Protecting tenants' rights

Renters and leaseholders deserve better. When complaints to housing association landlords go unresolved, residents are too often left to live in damp, mouldy and leaky homes without anywhere to turn. We will establish a dedicated, full-time and named officer at Wandsworth Council - a Tenants' Champion - to fight for renters and leaseholders whose complaints continue fall on deaf ears. They will be laser-focused on taking up individual cases while addressing persistent and systemic issues — working across housing associations, local police teams and the Adult Social Care department to improve housing conditions for tenants living across our Borough. 

The Lib Dems are campaigning to abolish leasehold tenures for all properties including flats, to scrap all ground rents on existing leases and to cap service and management charges. We need to end the great property rip-off and give leaseholders genuine control over how their buildings are run.