Supporting you through COVID
This year has been a difficult one for everyone and your Conservative-led Borough Council has worked hard to support residents. Providing discretionary COVID grants to support our businesses, one of the first councils to create COVID testing sites, setting up help hubs, delivering food parcels to shielding residents, providing PPE to care homes and, crucially protecting our elderly residents by stopping transfer from hospital to care homes without a negative COVID test.

Strong financial management
As the lowest funded Unitary authority in the country, but one of the top 20 councils for financial stability, our prudent financial management, low level of debt of £83m (confirmed by auditors) and strong asset base has enabled us to enhance services whilst maintaining strong reserves. We have used borrowings, for example, to build new council/affordable homes this has helped residents secure homes whilst generating income after borrowing costs to plough back into services.

Thinking outside the box
Whilst other councils were cutting stopping road repairs. I decided that the lack of traffic was an ideal opportunity to get ahead and accelerated our repairs plan. This reduced our costs, improved our roads and also provided local employment. I have progressed imaginative schemes to reduce congestion and increase sustainable transport, building new roads, cycleways and paths, joining up missing links and adopting the latest cycling standards so that, when our roads return to normal, people will have more alternatives available to them. We have also increased our library service and built a fantastic new leisure centre in Bulmershe.

Passionate about our environment
I have successfully lobbied my Conservative colleagues for the wooded area (DD) near Chalfont Park to be protected. Conservatives introduced food waste recycling ahead of the other RE3 councils and increased the variety of plastics recycled. This, with your help, has massively increased recycling in the Borough. I am firmly committed to weekly waste collection, again bucking the trend in other councils to bi or tri-weekly collections, as I believe that, particularly in the summer, it’s much better for people not to have waste hanging around in their houses.

I have worked hard for Hillside and Earley
I post regular news articles all year and often several times a day on social media to keep you informed. As Exec member for Highways and Transport I have started to make a real difference to the quality of our roads.

There is more to do and I need your support to continue this work.
In my 12 plus years as your Borough Councillor I have enjoyed talking to many people on our weekly street surgeries and helped thousands of people who email, tag and message me all the time.

This is hard work but rewarding and it’s a privilege to represent you and to be able to make a difference.

All the best

Pauline Jorgensen