Like many in Brighton and Hove, and indeed across the UK and beyond, the Labour group have watched the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan in recent weeks with mounting concern.

As on so many important issues, we have been astonished, infuriated and frustrated at the scale of the UK government’s complacency and mismanagement of this crisis situation, and the inadequacy of its proposed response.

The scheme announced to support Afghan refugees is vague, the details and timeframe unclear and the numbers are low and spread out over a period that could stretch to seven or more years.

There are many thousands of people in Afghanistan – particularly vulnerable women and children, as well as people who have worked with British forces in education and other vital areas – who need help NOW, today, tomorrow, this week, because they are living under existential threat. Our government needs to respond to this emergency more urgently, both alone and in conjunction with Nato and the USA.

It was very positive indeed to see how many parliamentarians across the political spectrum were critical of senior government figures’ handling of the proposed resettlement scheme and supportive of our Afghan workers (agency staff or otherwise) and their families, now exposed to extreme risk.

We are very proud of and committed to our work on acquiring and retaining Brighton and Hove’s status as a City of Sanctuary and call on both national government and the council’s Green administration to act with all possible speed to secure the necessary support and funding to welcome some of these traumatised people to live in safety among our inclusive and kind communities. Refugees are welcome here.

Last week the “Back on Track” project – aimed at children of alcoholic parents – held an exhibition in the Brighton Fishing Museum. You can find out more at brighton-hove.gov.uk. Back on Track has been a two-and-a-half year Innovation Fund project with funding from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions.

The Argus: Carmen AppichCarmen Appich

I was privileged to attend the launch event more than two years ago, alongside a number of people with lived experience, councillors and the mayor. The project is now in its last six weeks, and I’m looking forward to the report due in the autumn with recommendations based on the learning around providing a whole family response to parental alcohol addiction, which might include using the material developed in schools and libraries across the city, as well as nationally.

I’ve just returned to the UK from a visit to Austria to deal with a family emergency, having worked my way through the bureaucracy around repeated testing and locator forms.

An interesting difference to here is that every venue requires a test or vaccination certificate prior to service, as well as individual registration. They make it work by having lots of free testing stations offering PCR as well as quick antigen testing. These are in shopping centres, railway stations, near busy restaurants and tourist spots.

A lot of the response effort has been made on a regional basis, with city councils and regions as well as the health service and voluntary sectors working together. This has of course also worked best here in England, where our public health teams have unique local knowledge and information.

My post bag indicates that we have an ongoing weeds problem that our staff are struggling with across the city at the moment. A policy decision was made at the environment, transport and sustainability committee in 2019 for the council to stop using pesticides or herbicides in the city.

This was agreed in the knowledge that there would be more weeds on paved areas, but that it was more important to end the use of harmful chemicals that damage the environment and biodiversity. Instead, the council invested money in additional staff to undertake the manual removal of weeds.

This was fairly effective in the first two years, but this year the exceptional staff shortages and the weather leading to a growth spurt has meant that it is taking longer to remove weeds in all areas. I can confirm that Labour have managed to reserve some funds to support manual weed clearance as well as residents’ tidy up efforts, and hope we’ll all see an improvement in the near future.

Finally, renewing or ordering new parking permits is still proving a big problem for many residents, not helped by the lack of good communication. Labour councillors have been pushing to get this resolved – we are calling for a limited face-to-face customer centre for those who need or prefer to transact their business in that way.

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