Our priorities

Cleaner and greener

• We will do everything we can to ensure that over the next four years we make the borough cleaner and greener for our residents. Working to tackle the climate crisis through every area of council policy, we will ensure Lewisham is rated as a ‘top tier’ council for our work on climate action.
• We will continue the excellent work we have done over the last four years on tree planting. By 2026 we will have planted more street trees, tiny forests and community orchards across our borough.
• We will strive to maintain our status as having the best parks in London, continuing to invest in our much-loved parks and using our upcoming Play Strategy to create exciting environments for children within them.
• We will enable more active travel, and aim to reduce reliance on cars, introducing new walking paths to connect our borough, making it easier and more pleasant to get about Lewisham by foot or bike.
• We will keep our high streets cleaner by supporting residents to do what they can, and increasing our prosecutions for fly-tipping and street littering.

A strong local economy

• We will continue to expand our apprenticeship programme into new areas of work, building on the 260 apprentices that we placed during the 2018–2022 administration.
• We will invest in our high streets and create more pedestrianised spaces, doing what we can do ensure our borough is the best place in London for entrepreneurs to start their businesses.
• We will continue to promote Lewisham’s Shop Local Campaign, providing support for our independent businesses as well as protecting and improving our local street markets.
• We will actively work to attract jobs and businesses to Lewisham, building on the success of Lewisham Works and creating more spaces for pop-up stores and markets in shops that are temporarily empty.
• We will continue to work with businesses across the borough, encouraging them to become London Living Wage employers. 

Quality housing

• We will deliver more social homes for Lewisham residents, working to provide as many people as possible with safe, comfortable accommodation that they can be proud of and happy living in.
• We will aim to improve the conditions in the borough’s housing stock, working with all housing providers to encourage retro-fitting as part of our drive to be carbon-neutral by 2030, and to develop a Lewisham Rent Repairs Charter that improves the quality and timeliness of repairs.
• We will provide more support to renters through further landlord licensing and enforcement of poorly managed homes, holding landlords to account and giving a voice to renters across the borough.
• We will safeguard our heritage by preserving and restoring our historic buildings and landmarks, ensuring Lewisham’s history is preserved and maintained for future generations.

Children and Young People

• We will continue the fantastic work of the last four years, supporting our schools to improve and increasing the opportunities for young people in Lewisham.
• We will relentlessly focus on pupil achievement, working with our schools and communities to build on our inclusive and high-achieving system of local comprehensive schools.
• We will ensure the most vulnerable children are protected from harm, driving improvement in children’s social care and aiming to reduce the number of children coming into care through earlier
  targeted support for families in crisis.
• We will help to create new breakfast clubs at schools and continue to lobby the government to expand their free school meals programme.

Safer Communities

• We will work with the police to implement our Violence Against Women and Girls strategy. This will include developing a new reporting tool that allows residents to map areas where they
  don’t feel safe, and feed that back to the Council and police.
• We will continue to support the Mayor of London’s Have a Word campaign, which encourages men to reflect on their own behaviour and the way they see, treat and talk about women.
• We will reduce the number of young people who enter the criminal justice system, focusing on prevention and expanding our trauma-informed approach, championed by our Youth Justice Service.
• We will continue to focus and develop our successful public health approach to youth violence, aiming to tackle knife crime and reduce sexual exploitation across the borough. 

Open Lewisham

• We will celebrate Lewisham’s diversity, ensuring we are a representative and inclusive council and workforce.
• We will maintain our status as a Borough of Sanctuary and London’s leading borough for refugee resettlement.
• We will develop plans to build on our legacy as London’s Borough of Culture, celebrating the diverse and creative communities within Lewisham. This will include creating a new Culture and Live Music Strategy and bringing artists, community groups and businesses together to launch a Black Arts Festival.
• We will maintain and strengthen the Lewisham Way of working in collaboration with our voluntary and community sectors and seek new areas where we can partner together.
• We will actively listen to our residents, being responsive to their concerns and communicative in our approach. We will co-design services with those affected by them and ensure strong consultation processes that reach out to people whose voices are seldom heard.

Health and Wellbeing

• We will partner with local food banks, food growing groups, schools and communities, through our joint Lewisham Food Action Plan. Together, we will ensure that everyone can access food and other essentials.
• We will learn from our Birmingham and Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review, aiming to mitigate and ultimately end, structural racism and discrimination as a driver of health inequalities.
• We will progress towards a fairer social care system, improving conditions for care workers to ensure they feel valued and that Lewisham is known as an exemplary employer.
• We will work with the local NHS to deliver the services Lewisham residents need and create the Lewisham Health Care and Wellbeing Charter.
• We will collaborate with other organisations to deliver the places, activities and programmes our residents need to feel empowered to live a physically active lifestyle.