The nine new cabinet members sat for the first time on Tuesday (2nd June), reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter
Waltham Forest Council’s new Green administration approved a series of new housing and foster care policies in its first official meeting.
The nine new cabinet members sat for the first time on Tuesday afternoon (2nd June) after winning a shock victory in the May local elections.
In their first order of business, the town hall recommissioned the Healthy Child Programme, which covers healthcare for months-old infants through 19-year-olds.
The renewed scheme – put forward by health cabinet member Martin Edobor – boosting support for fathers, widening an infant-feeding service and bolstering help for home-schooled children.
The cabinet also renewed Waltham Forest’s leadership of a cross-borough foster care service – covering Havering, Redbridge, and Tower Hamlets – as part of an ongoing national initiative by the Department for Education to tackle the declining number of foster carers.
Moving to planning, senior councillors also agreed to implement new guidelines on how residents and small-scale developers can retrofit their homes to improve sustainability and “enhance local character”.
Green deputy leader Eva Tabassam said the new planning supplement, which immediately came into effect, will mean higher standards of living, better house designs, and more sustainable homes.
It was approved alongside plans to reprocure a 15-year mechanical repairs contract, at a total cost of £90million, and a £156m general repairs contract covering the next 16 years.
The four policies were all in development under the previous Labour administration.
The cabinet will meet on a monthly basis to approve major policies. They can range from planning schemes to new environmental initiatives.
Residents have protested cabinet meetings in the past, notably when the previous Labour administration scrapped a 15-minute free parking scheme and when the Markhouse Centre for disabled adults was shuttered.
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