Can you get your organisation to sign- trade unions, community organisations, tenants groups, Labour or Green Party branches etc? Or think of any prominent individuals to endorse it?
Birmingham City Council: honour your commitment to net zero by 2030 and ensure that green policies are at the heart of any future plans.
– No retreat on Net Zero by 2030 – green jobs now.
– No cuts to services, jobs, wages or conditions.
– No rise in council tax.
– Settle the equal pay dispute on terms acceptable to the unions.
– Send Michael Gove and the commissioners packing.
We call on Birmingham City Council to re-state its commitment to net zero by 2030 and to ensure that green policies are at the heart of any future plans.
Investment in green policies is good for jobs, good for our environment and good for the economy.
Rishi Sunak has announced he’s happy for the planet to keep burning. Now that government appointed commissioners are poised to take over the running of our city, there is a real risk that Birmingham’s plans to reach net zero by 2030 could also go up in smoke.
The government has already cut Birmingham’s budget by £1bn since 2010, an eye-watering 60 percent cut. This is the root of the budget crisis, not the debt to women workers for the wages they should always have been paid.
When Birmingham City Council issued a section 114 notice, it essentially declared the city bankrupt. But Birmingham is not broke. Birmingham’s economy has grown by 36 per cent since 2013 to £29bn, attracting the most foreign direct investment in any city outside the capital over the past year.
Business might be booming, but pollution in our city already means our children are more likely to suffer asthma as they grow up and lung cancer when they’re older. Our city is crying out for investment in cleaner, safer roads, better public transport, warm homes and good health and social care.
Through more than a decade of austerity, Birmingham City Council has failed to mount any real challenge to government cuts. Instead, it chose to spend vast sums of money on prestige projects, CEOs, consultants and a disastrous IT system.
Meanwhile HS2, supposedly the region’s most visible symbol of levelling up, is becoming a symbol of incompetence and mismanagement.
The government directly running Birmingham City Council won’t help the city or its citizens. Instead, we will see another 5 years of austerity locked in. This would mean an increased pace of cuts, less services and more privatisation, all of which hit the poorest hardest and deepen inequalities of race and gender.
It’s time to take a stand. To solve this crisis, we need:
– The government to pay back the £1bn it took from Birmingham so the council can settle the equal pay claims.
– Increased contributions to council finances from business rates.
– Real decision making in the hands of citizens and accountable councillors, not council CEOs, undemocratic quangos, or appointed commissioners.
– Restored democracy-driven governance, with union and community representatives sitting on all service area committees.
– The retrofitting and re-purposing of Smallbrook Ringway Centre.
– The phase-out of Tyseley incinerator and investment in a zero-waste strategy.
– An end to wasteful prestige projects.
– Investment in people and environment, no retreat on Net Zero by 2030
Birmingham Climate Justice Coalition
Initial signatories:
Birmingham Friends of the Earth
Midlands PCS
Unite Community Birmingham
UoB Green Party Society
DivestWMPF
Banner Theatre
West Midlands Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Balsall Heath Extinction Rebellion
Glue Collective
Trans Pride Birmingham
Disabled People Against Cuts Birmingham
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