Leader Calderdale Council:

By Coun Jane Scullion, Leader Calderdale Council

But that doesn’t stop me from being hopeful that the coming year will be better than the last, not just for me, but for everyone. So here are my hopes for 2024.

This year, as you won’t be surprised to hear, I am really hoping that we can see better government of our country, and an end to the utter disorganisation and chaos and dodgy practices that we’ve had from Westminster. Honestly, this current government doesn’t fill me with any hope at all.

I’ve seen people struggling to give their kids a proper Christmas, the health services under pressures, older people being afraid to put the heating on and young families as well as single people who can’t meet their mortgages following runaway inflation.

It’s definitely just not good enough, we deserve better and let’s hope 2024 can indeed be better.

Another hope for next year is that we think more about our country’s children. They give us hope for the future and we need them to be safe and happy.

Many families have had a tough couple of years with the disruption caused by the pandemic and we are still seeing the effects of that difficult time with increasing family breakup and children in need of child protection orders. More children are coming into the care of the council and that puts pressure on our social work services. We’d like to see more thriving happy families.

I really hope that in this year we can see the number of foodbanks in our borough beginning to come down. It is pretty shocking that in a country like ours we have people, even working people, who have to turn to a foodbank to make ends meet.

In 2023, for the first time, we had reports of our younger children in Calderdale being underweight for age. The council, schools and charities have worked together to ensure that children are fed during the school holidays in recent years, but this is not a situation we should be happy to see again in 2024.

And, in spite of failing in my previous resolutions to go running every day, I do really hope that all of us who can are able to take the time to be more active in our daily lives. I’m trying to walk for short journeys rather than always taking the car out, and I’m also using our buses and trains as much as I can, thinking here as much about the health of our planet as my own. Small steps, but I do believe that together we can make a difference.

The health of our local democracy is important too. It’s not easy being a councillor nowadays when we are facing such terrible funding cuts once again from central government, but here in Calderdale our Labour administration will work hard to balance the books while trying to do our utmost to protect vital public services.

Like most of us, I want Calderdale to be a place of decency, fairness, safety and hope, and I’ll do my best during 2024 to try to help bring this about.

I wish you and all your loved ones a happy, healthy and rewarding New Year.