Mayor announces first relief package to tackle cost of living

Writing in a message to residents, Lutfur Rahman, Mayor of Tower Hamlets, announced how the council will roll out a holiday food programme for children entitled to free school meals by the summer break, alongside keeping universal free school meals for primary school children and aim to extend them to children in secondary schools.  

The Mayor also set out how he is seeking to freeze council tax as soon as possible, alongside paying the 10 per cent of council tax rebates that the government does not.

Lutfur Rahman, Mayor of Tower Hamlets, said:

“My first priority is to address the social emergency facing Tower Hamlets residents as fuel, food, and rent goes up while wages go down. At the same time, we’re going to start building the future.”

Mayor Rahman also set out his plans to:

• Begin a plan for building 1,000 new high quality council homes. 
• End the traffic management schemes that are not working, and look at new measures that reduce air pollution, support local businesses, and ensure our borough is safe and convenient for all road users. 
• Bring more of our public services that have been outsourced back into public hands. 
• Set up a green jobs taskforce to get carbon out of the atmosphere and money into residents’ pockets. 
• Work on an alternative to the current Truman Brewery redevelopment plan.  
• Challenge “fire and rehire” tactics, poverty pay, and exploitative contracts, while supporting trade unions. 

The Mayor also invited residents to have their say and offer ideas to make Tower Hamlets a better borough. He said: “While we implement our plan for the first hundred days, we want to hear your ideas for our future too.

“Please send your suggestions to [email protected] with the subject line “Ideas for Tower Hamlets”. 

“I look forward to working with our whole community to make Tower Hamlets a place we can all be proud to grow up, live, work, and grow old in.”