Cllr Paul Swaddle, Leader of Westminster City Council, has set out in the Westminster Extra how Westminster Conservatives are backing the city's businesses, from a 98.5 per cent licensing approval rate to a new Economic Growth Framework. Writing on the letters page, Cllr Swaddle pointed to the record of the council's first 100 days, which he set out at Full Council on 16 September.
"We have ended Labour's managed decline and turned this council into one of delivery, with enforcement strengthened, graffiti blitzed, contract waste exposed, and a fight for a fairer funding settlement," he wrote.
He highlighted that the council approves 98.5 per cent of all licensing applications and has relaxed licensing policy across the city by shrinking the cumulative impact zone. "Westminster Conservatives are the only group locally that backs business," he said, describing the new Economic Growth Framework, introduced at Full Council to back high streets and boost business confidence, as "serious policy for growth and building a stronger economy here."
Cllr Swaddle criticised Westminster Labour for spending the summer attacking him "for running a successful company that creates jobs locally, as though entrepreneurship were something to be ashamed of," and for leaving it too late to mount a serious legal challenge to the Mayor's plans for Oxford Street.
"The brave new dawn he promised for the end of October now looks set to be three benches, a couple of trees and some bollards," he wrote. "That is not a credible plan, and we will keep demanding answers," on step-free access, servicing and traffic displacement on Oxford Street.
You can read Cllr Paul Swaddle's letter in the Westminster Extra in full here.
