From a City of Protest - to a City of Pride

In just six months, as residents of Brighton, Hove and Portslade, we will be heading to the polls to elect a new government and a new city council. I would like to set out here - and in the 13 election pledges we publish today (see below) - exactly what a Conservative-run council will mean, if you put your trust in us next May.

After four years of the hit-and-miss "Green experiment", we believe the vast majority of residents and businesses want the return of common sense to their council. We will deliver this for them.

The city has been allowed to become run down and the basics, such as clean streets and attractive parks, and open spaces, so crucial to attracting the visitors that the local economy relies upon, have been neglected.

We promise to return to a beautiful city - where the rubbish is collected on time, the streets are swept, and our public gardens, parks and flowerbeds are blooming again. We will work with our staff at CityClean to give them a real stake in the service they deliver, like at John Lewis.

The City of Protest will be transformed into a City of Pride.

We will put an end to rip-off parking charges, which have done so much damage to the city's reputation both with visitors and in the business

community.

Crucially, your council tax will not go up with a Conservative council. We will concentrate on delivery of front-line services. Emphasis will be on early intervention and prevention, to reduce reliance on high-cost council services.

A Conservative council will give residents and, in particular, our younger residents the opportunities they need to enable them to prosper. We will work with a range of school- providers to deliver excellent schools near to where you live, with a relentless focus on raising aspirations and standards for pupils from more deprived areas and tackling areas where we lag behind the rest of the country, such as in mathematics.

We will support the development of more apprenticeships, in line with the great progress the government is making in this area and we will work with employers to make sure that more highly-skilled and better-paid jobs are available for local young people, who often miss out at the hands of the many graduates who choose to remain in our city. We will help and encourage young people to get their foot on the housing ladder.

A Conservative council will give the community and voluntary sector the freedom and resources to flourish and deliver the services that we know they can often do better and more cost-effectively than the council. They will be the primary beneficiary of our rigorous programme of market-testing of council services that is long overdue.

Under a Conservative council, our city will be a great place to do business and create jobs and we will ensure that the culture of the council becomes "business- friendly" to reflect this.

Because of the success of their long-term economic plan, the government has delivered significant investment over the last few years, such as £420 million to rebuild the Royal Sussex County Hospital and funding through the new Greater Brighton City Deal to kick- start projects such as Preston Barracks, Circus Street, and New England House.

We will work to do everything we can to ensure that national investment in our local economy continues, particularly the seafront - the jewel in the city's crown, which is so desperately in need of regeneration. We will continue to lobby for investment in crucial infrastructure such as a second Brighton-to-London rail line and improvements to theA27.

This city has everything going for it; we are close to our buoyant capital city and have a thriving cultural scene. Above all, we are by the sea. Some 9,400 new jobs have been created in the city since 2010 and unemployment is at an all-time low. But we could and should be doing even better and under a Conservative administration we will achieve our potential.

Our offer to you is credible, affordable, and achievable. If elected, Conservative councillors will be hard-working, committed and will work tirelessly for all residents across Brighton, Hove and Portslade.

Geoffrey Theobald is leader of the Conservative Group on Brighton and Hove City Council.