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Peter John joins local employment summit

London SE1 website team

'Innovation, action and outcomes' is to be the theme of Labour's new Southwark administration said Cllr Peter John.

The council leader was making his first speech outside the Town Hall since the election when he addressed the Local Employment Summit at Glaziers Hall on Friday.

"We want to be a council that listens to what you say," said Cllr John who added that he had asked every council officer to treat members of the public as if they were mermbers of their own family.

Looking ahead over the next four years in office he said: "We are determined to deliver on regeneration at the Elephant & Castle."

On employment he told the meeting that Southwark had seen a 15 per cent growth in jobs and 35 per cent in new businesses. But he added that although the north of the borough had seen 16,000 new jobs there were still pockets of unemployment.

Giles Semper, Better Bankside Deputy CEO, contrasted the impressive job opportunities in Cathedrals and Riverside wards with the above average number of lone parents in Southwark. A total of 33,540 people were currently claiming out of work benefit.

He said that 56 per cent of businesses were not only recuiting but attempting to do so locally.

Helen Santer of Waterloo Quarter BID spoke briefly about the benefits of employing local residents.

Southwark's Cathedrals ward has for about twenty years had both high investment and above average unemployment even during boom years. The breakfast meeting, chaired by Donald Hyslop Director of Regeneration & Community Partnerships, Tate Modern, was part of a research project Better Bankside is undertaking in cooperation with Team London Bridge and Waterloo Quarter BID.

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