I was dismayed to recently discover that Evrim Laws, one of the current Labour councillors for Peckham Rye, has not been to a single Community Council meeting in the last year. Not one. Though I can hardly say I’m surprised anymore. I’d like someone to tell me what she has actually done over the last year to justify her allowance from taxpayers.

The current Labour councillors have taken the people they are supposed to represent completely for granted. I have not spoken to a single resident who has ever had a Labour councillor knock on their door. They have achieved nothing during their time on the council – the newsletters they distribute do not contain a single story of the good work they’ve done, because there aren’t any stories to tell.

We have been knocking on doors for years now. We have been picking up casework; mending drains, clearing rubbish, getting people re-housed. We have been campaigning on local issues; housing, transport, school places, recycling. Doing the job in fact, that the Labour councillors should have been doing.

Community Councils were set up in Southwark by the Liberal Democrats. They were opposed by Labour. We believe that local people are the best at making decisions that affect them. We shift power down, even if this means establishing all-Labour Community Councils who just use the forum to bash the council, instead of to actually achieve anything meaningful.

At last month’s Community Council, none of the Peckham Rye councillors even bothered to turn up. It’s a sad fact that residents in Peckham Rye are effectively without any representation on the council, given that their current Labour councillors have given up trying to work for the people of their ward. Peckham Rye deserves better.