THIS week the Oxford Mail is profiling the different political parties canvassing for your vote in the upcoming Oxford City Council elections on May 6. Today, the leader of the Labour group Susan Brown lays out her pledges to voters.

Ms Brown, who has been the Labour leader of the city council since 2018, said her party's main pledge to voters was to build more affordable housing.

She said: "It is not accidental that housing is front and foremost in our manifesto, it is such a crucial issue for our city and our city's economy and I think the two things are intertwined."

The party's manifesto for the city council elections includes four promises: delivering affordable homes, working towards a zero carbon Oxford, making the economy 'work for all citizens', and 'making Oxford a great place for everyone to live'.

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Housing crisis

On housing, the party has promised to build 620 new council houses in the next four years.

Ms Brown, who was first elected to the council in 1994 at the age of 24 partly because she wanted to solve the housing crisis, said she thought building homes would help the economy recover from Covid.

"If you don't have enough affordable housing it becomes difficult to retain employees," she said.

"And equally we need those jobs to make sure people want to stay in our city. That has been the crucial part of our work over many years."

Labour is also promising to continue with its plans to create a register of all private rented homes in Oxford, building on the register of houses in multiple occupation it runs at the moment.

Ms Brown said this was important to make sure there was 'quality housing' available for the 50 per cent of Oxford residents living in private rented homes.

Climate change

On tackling climate change, Oxford's Labour party is pledging to make the council a net zero carbon authority by 2030, and for the rest of the city's businesses and institutions to follow by 2040.

It is also pledging other practical means to encourage people to change their behaviours that cause pollution.

This includes rolling out an extra 100 electric car chargers, and supporting measures like Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, dedicated cycle tracks, and the city-wide Connecting Oxford proposals which could see more bus-only routes called bus gates introduced.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and the bus gates in particular have already proved controversial with some in the city.

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Ms Brown said: "We know we are going to have to take people with us on quite a difficult journey at times, and it is important that we do take them with us, because the end result could not be more important - it is the survival of our city and of our world."

She added: "There are groups of people for whom they will always want to drive their car wherever they want, and I don't think we are ever going to please all of those people. I think where LTNs have worked well.. is where they have been discussed with people to give them a lot of help to design schemes."

Oxford Living Wage

On a fairer local economy, the Labour party is promising to promote more social enterprises and co-ops, to fill empty shops with start up companies, continuing an ongoing scheme called Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, and to promote the Oxford Living Wage.

The wage is currently set at £10.31 and is meant to be the lower limit to hourly earnings that allows someone to pay their way in an expensive city.

At the heart of its local economic plans is the 'bedrock' promise to tackle poverty and inequality.

Ms Brown said: "We want to make sure people have a decent standard of living, a decent home and a decent, happy neighbourhood to live in."

Safer wild swimming

The party's final pledge to 'make Oxford a great place for everyone to live' includes promises to rebuild East Oxford Community Centre and Bullingdon Community Centre, to promote use of the city's parks, and create wildlife habitats in the city's green spaces.

Ms Brown added Labour was pledging to campaign for bathing water status in Oxford's rivers.

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She said: "There has always been a strong tradition of swimming in Oxford's rivers and we have been concerned about the quality of that water. We have been campaigning to Thames Water for some time now to get that improve up to proper bathing standards."

On improving quality of life in the city, Labour is also promising to work with police to stop domestic abuse, county lines and other forms of child exploitation and modern slavery.

Ms Brown said: "We have always worked hard to make sure our neighbourhoods are safe places to live and are working with the police to tackle some of these appalling exploitations that have gone on and continue to go on."