The leader of Bromley’s Labour group says she was left “appalled and angry” after a letter sent to fellow councillors detailing actions the authority could take to tackle racism failed to receive one response.

Cllr Angela Wilkins sent the letter on behalf of the council’s Labour group in the wake of the death of US man George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement, claiming afterwards that she didn’t receive any correspondence back.

“It is simply unacceptable for Bromley’s elected representatives to sit back and do nothing; I am appalled and also angry to hear silence from other councillors, and I’m particularly surprised not to have heard back on this important issue from the leader of the council, Cllr Colin Smith,” the ward member for Crystal Palace said.

“As councillors we can – and must – do much, much more than sign petitions and protest alongside groups such as Black Lives Matter. We are elected to effect change at a local level; we can and must use that power to stamp out both racism and racial discrimination by working more closely with our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnicity (BAME) communities and examining the way the council operates.”

However, Bromley Council’s Conservative leader Colin Smith said there was “no evidence” racism was a common issue in the borough, and asked why Cllr Wilkins hadn’t raised it earlier if it was.

“With regards to the Labour Group’s letter, I would imagine the reason why nobody responded to it was due to the false premise contained within it that racism is commonplace across Bromley,” he told the local democracy reporting service.

“There is no evidence which has ever been drawn to my attention to support the Labour Group’s assertion that this is true.

“If it were the case that a problem exists locally, I would simply ask why it is that Cllr Wilkins, leader of the Labour Group as she has been now for the past six years, hasn’t done anything to escalate her concerns previously. Why has she been so silent for so long herself?”

Leader of the two-strong Independent group, Melanie Stevens, was also contacted for comment.

In her original letter to councillors, Cllr Wilkins called on the council to establish a BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Community Panel which would “listen and engage” with communities “to better understand their life experiences and the specific challenges they face”.

She also said the authority should restore funding for a specialist BAME officer.

“I would also ask any BAME residents or businesses who have either experiences of discrimination or proposals to address such to get in touch with their local Councillors or to contact me,” she added.

Bromley Council leader Colin Smith’s full response:

“With regards to the Labour Group’s letter, I would imagine the reason why nobody responded to it was due to the false premise contained within it that racism is commonplace across Bromley.

There is no evidence which has ever been drawn to my attention to support the Labour Group’s assertion that this is true.

If it were the case that a problem exists locally, I would simply ask why it is that Cllr Wilkins, leader of the Labour Group as she has been now for the past six years, hasn’t done anything to escalate her concerns previously. Why has she been so silent for so long herself?

With regards to their follow up ‘press release’, my own view, as Cllr Wilkins asks, was captured in early May at the Council AGM , when I said, in her presence, whilst speaking of Bromley volunteers’  amazing London leading response to the Covid Crisis :

I think it just goes to underline the decency, selflessness and right-thinking of Bromley residents. It doesn’t matter what part of the borough they live in, race or religion, politics (are) absolutely irrelevant, they have stepped forward when it counted. That makes me, for one, very, very proud to be a member of this borough. I think the key thing we must do going forward, every single one of us, is to ensure that we harness that (energy). That most certainly is the objective of this administration.

If the Labour Group in Bromley chose to join a mass protest at the height of a deadly national pandemic against strict Government medical advice, at obvious risk of avoidably spreading the virus further, that is clearly a decision for them to reflect upon and answer for.

They are quite simply wrong to allude that Bromley Council isn’t fully compliant with its Public Sector Equality Duty responsibilities and a brief ‘google’ of the Council’s website records Equality Impact Assessments (EIA’s)  undertaken on all major policy decisions.

As for the council itself, the composition of Bromley’s senior leadership team speaks for itself.

The council demonstrably continues to recruit the best people for the job regardless of their background or ethnicity in line with all right thinking peoples’ expectations and that underlying principle will of course continue moving to the future.”