Starting my Campaign

4 weeks tomorrow will be polling day for the forthcoming Somerset County Council elections.

I will be standing for the Labour Party for my home Town, Shepton Mallet.

In these times of Austerity it would be easy to promise this or that, but what I can promise is that if elected i will work hard for Shepton and my fellow residents, my policy interests are education and the importance of early years intervention, if all children are exposed to language and literature in their early years those childrens educational achievement will be greater in later life.

There is no doubt Shepton is badly served by public transport and this needs urgent revision.

Young people have taken the brunt of the governments cuts, Shepton has no youth service provision and your county councillor needs to work to improve opportunities for young people.

Shepton needs to improve it's cultural services, sports, arts and community involvement.

It is an obvious statement to make but Shepton has been neglected by local government, this largely the way councils run their services, in the last 20 years or so, either Lib Dems or Conservatives have represented Shepton at County Hall.

In those 20 years public services has been lost from Shepton, too many to list but access to services are harder, contacting your local police is harder because the loss of the police office, poor bus services for employment or to access out of Town entertainment, the services people depend upon are going and going fast.

Is Shepton's voice being heard?

On Sunday I wrote of the years of neglect in regard to safety around Shepton schools.

If elected I will promise to make Shepton's voice heard!

There is also a District Council byelection in Shepton West, I will be standing for this also.

Mendip Council has failed Shepton in regard to housing, in getting enough affordable housing for rent and for sale. The need to strengthing Mendips policy on lettings and making sure only high quality housing is offered to people.

There are too many examples of poor planning in and around Shepton, there is a need to beef up Mendips policy on quality of design so that new development is compatible with a historic market town.

There is a need to protect our open spaces within Shepton, with the Mid Somerset Showfield and West Shepton playing fields being prime examples.

Council needs to do more to support business and business development to help create jobs.

I helped the Town Council and was involved in Mendip's selection of the new groundcare contractor, we now have to ensure the quality promised by the contractor.

I will be visiting many of Shepton's residents in the coming four weeks and I look forward to meeting and discussing Shepton and our Council futures.