Hello, I’m Virginia Rounding, and I was previously a Councillor in this Ward from 2011 to 2017, and would now like to take up the cudgels on your behalf again.
To summarise, and briefly expand on, the pledges contained in my election leaflet:
If elected, I commit myself to being available and attentive to your needs and concerns and, in particular, to help you get answers and navigate your way through what can at times appear like a byzantine system. The Corporation’s website, for instance, hides a wealth of information but it remains difficult to get at it. I will lobby to get that improved – a far more useful, comprehensive and engaging Contact Us page, for example, is needed, with clear links to clear answers and routes to information – but in the meantime, and in addition, I am prepared to provide that route, where necessary. People often tell me that, on balance, they enjoy living and working in the City – it can be and often is, a great place – but it is the accumulation of minor irritants – noise, roadworks, lack of sufficient recycling facilities, sometimes an overall sense of powerlessness to get issues addressed – that gets people down. I aim to improve that situation, including being available to advise and assist with crafting objections, when necessary, to poor planning or inappropriate licensing applications. In the worst case scenario, I do have hands-on experience of helping residents put together the evidence for a licence review. And I must stress that when I was last a Councillor I did this as part of a team of members, and that’s how I would do it again – it’s in working together that we get things done.
I will maintain pressure on City planners to improve the management of what used to be called ‘shared space’ – I learnt from one of the electors during this campaign that that term has fallen out of favour among urban designers – because actually we’re not very good at sharing space, with the competing demands of pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, all of us in a hurry to get to where we’re going. I intend to champion the use of good research about street design and road safety, from wherever it comes in the world – such as that carried out by the Project for Public Space in New York – as well as pressing for more actual physical evidence to be collected here in the City about people’s behaviour at busy intersections – so that we don’t rely on anecdote or theory, but on what actually happens. One place where more evidence needs to be collected, and acted on – even if that just means banging on at Transport for London – is at Ludgate Circus, but that’s not the only place.
The austerity imposed by central government over the last few years has hit local authorities hard, and the City Corporation – in its role as a local authority, if not in all its other activities – is no exception. At a time when everything is being looked at to see if costs can be cut, I will add my voice to the need to maintain not just basic services, but all those strategies and initiatives that lead to people’s wellbeing – from protection from crime and the fear of crime, to the overwhelming need to improve our air quality and to combat climate change, to the provision of adequate healthcare for what is an expanding population of residents in our Ward, to the implementation and monitoring of an improved Homelessness Strategy.
And I add to that that I am politically independent, and passionately committed to equality and diversity, and to teamwork.
I have been involved in City of London life since I first moved into a flat in Long Lane in 1997. My side of the street was then in Farringdon Without, boundary changes bringing it ‘Within’ a few years later. I subsequently moved out of the Ward, but continued to be closely involved with it through my long-term association with the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, and now work only a few minutes’ walk away.
