“After 100 days of Reform UK running Havering, the Conservatives appear more interested in rewriting history than acknowledging what is actually happening.”
Reform UK Havering Response to Conservatives article.
A spokesperson for Reform UK Havering told the Havering Daily:
After 100 days of Reform UK running Havering, the Conservatives appear more interested in rewriting history than acknowledging what is actually happening.
Let’s deal with the facts.
🔵 Council Tax
The Conservatives claim Reform has increased Council Tax this year.
There is just one rather important problem with that claim. Havering’s 2026 – 2027 budget and Council Tax were agreed on 4 March. Two months BEFORE Reform UK took control of the Council.
Trying to blame the new administration for a budget inherited from its predecessors is simply dishonest politics.
🔵 HEXIT
We have not abandoned the principle that Havering deserves its say on the matter.
What has been said is that it the referendum would be require National Government to authorise it. That’s not going to happen under Labour. And with the immediate task we face of fixing Havering after being left broken by past Conservative administrations, we want to prioritise our limited time and resources on fixing their mess as much as possible.
🔵 Libraries
Nobody in Reform is pretending re-opening libraries closed under the previous HRA administration is as simple as unlocking the doors.
Work is taking place to find sustainable ways of reopening them.
We would rather re-open services properly than make promises we cannot sustainably deliver.
🔵 Safer and cleaner streets
To claim ‘nothing has been done’ is plainly wrong.
We have launched proposals for a borough-wide Public Spaces Protection Order to tackle anti-social behaviour and are already delivering our commitment to cleaner streets.
Romford Town Centre has undergone a major deep clean, including jet washing, graffiti removal and enhanced street cleansing, with work now being considered for the other town centres across Havering.
🔵 HMOs
Perhaps the Conservatives also missed the consultation now underway for a borough-wide Article 4 Direction, giving Havering much stronger powers to control the spread of HMOs and protect family homes.
That was another commitment in our 100 Day Plan and it is being delivered.
🔵 Civic pride
Yes, the Union Flag, St George’s Cross and Borough Flag are back where they belong at Havering Town Hall.
For years residents were told the flagpoles could not be restored until expensive roof works had taken place.
We proved otherwise.
The reality is that Reform UK inherited a Council facing enormous financial and operational challenges.
Nobody sensible believes every problem accumulated over years can be fixed in 100 days.
But in those first 100 days we have started the HMO crackdown, strengthened street cleansing, progressed tougher measures against anti-social behaviour, challenged external organisations over long-running infrastructure failures and begun the work of restoring pride in Havering.
The Conservatives are perfectly entitled to criticise us.
But after losing ALL their Councillors in Havering, for the first time in the Borough’s history, they might want to give the new administration slightly longer than 100 days before pretending every problem left behind by 20 years of Conservative-led Havering along with 4 years of a HRA-led Havering suddenly belongs to Reform UK.
We were elected to change Havering.
That work has started and there is much more to come.
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Yet Reform UK plc seem to expect Labour to have fixed a decade-and-a-half of Tory chaos, brought on by the triple disasters of austerity, Brexit and Trussonomics, at national level – of which most Reform MPs were compliant in and supportive of by virtue of their previous life as Conservative MPs – within two years.
Secondly, with regard to Hexit: a quick read of other local news websites shows that the weekend saw a triple shooting in Braintree and a quadruple stabbing at a hotel event near Grays. Why would we want to import this crime-ridden Essex culture into our comparatively reasonable law-abiding part of Greater London ?