The St Helens Labour Group has issued a sharp response to the Reform-led council’s decision to dismantle vital financial support schemes, warning that abandoning these commitments leaves hundreds of local families facing severe back-to-school distress while directly undermining town centre businesses.
Cllr Keith Laird, Leader of St Helens Labour Group said “Stripping away the school uniform grant and cancelling free town centre parking reveals a complete disregard for the daily realities facing our community. At the exact moment parents are counting every penny to ensure their children walk into the classroom with dignity, this administration has pulled the rug out from under them, replacing promised support with anxiety and silence.
“When you squeeze family budgets and erect financial barriers around our high streets, everyone loses. Parents face unbearable choices, small shops lose essential footfall, and our local economy stalls.
“St Helens Borough deserves leadership with empathy, vision, and a commitment to shared prosperity—not short-sighted decisions that leave families stranded and local high streets neglected.”
“St Helens Borough deserves leadership with empathy, vision, and a commitment to shared prosperity—not short-sighted decisions that leave families stranded and local high streets neglected.” - Cllr Keith Laird, Leader of St Helens Labour Group
Independent Proof of a Stable Council
First and foremost, the claim that our council was mismanaged is simply untrue. You don’t have to take our word for it. Independent experts, including the Local Government Association and strict external auditors, recently examined the council’s finances. Their official verdict? St Helens was “not in a critical position” and remained “relatively stable” with strong governance.
We achieved this despite staggering cuts. Since 2010, the funding St Helens receives from central government was slashed from £127 million down to a mere £13 million. Despite that massive loss, we fought hard for our borough. Working alongside our local MPs and the Metro Mayor, we successfully secured an extra £14.7 million in recovery funding to keep your vital services running.
Why We Used Our Savings
Cllr Woodward has heavily criticised our decision to use some of the council’s financial reserves. But reserves are a community’s safety net—they are our town’s “rainy day” savings and over the past few years, for many of our residents, it has been pouring down.
When inflation hit its highest rate in 40 years, the cost of keeping our elderly safe, providing adult social care, and protecting vulnerable children in the foster system skyrocketed. We faced a choice. We could have hoarded that money in a bank account just to make a spreadsheet look good, while leaving our care system to collapse. Instead, we made the compassionate choice. We used those savings exactly as they were intended: as a shield to protect our residents during an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.
Protecting vulnerable children and the elderly from suffering is not “mismanagement”—it is the fundamental duty of a caring local government.
Political Choices, Not Financial Necessities
We left the new administration with a stable foundation and over £150 million allocated to invest in our schools, roads, and town regeneration. There was no financial black hole forcing them to take away the support you rely on.
When the Reform administration chooses to strip away free school uniforms right as parents are struggling with back-to-school costs, or when they cancel the free town centre parking that our local shops desperately need to thrive, those are their political choices. They are trying to invent a financial crisis to justify cutting the targeted support that working families and high street businesses would have benefitted from.
We will always stand by the choices we made to protect our community, and we will keep fighting for the support that St Helens Borough families and businesses deserve.