Campaign Leaflet (Buckingham East - for Buckinghamshire Council)

 

As your councillor, I will:

• Constantly listen to the concerns, aspirations and challenges being faced by the residents of Buckingham East, and do whatever I can to help
• Focus on: pothole innovation | using Council purchasing to boost local business | more transparency | louder voice for parish/town councils | more clean/green energy | inequalities in schools and elsewhere | addressing loneliness, fuel poverty and other factors affecting well-being in our communities | making our streets & homes safer
• Without fear, favour, dogma or obligation, always put the people and communities of my ward first on all matters including planning, social care, education, finances and beyond into every corner of Council services
• Use all my creativity, passion and insights to search for and find innovative ways to tackle the difficult challenges ahead, post pandemic
• Forge alliances, exert influence, ask probing questions and challenge baloney (each as appropriate) in order to get the best results for the people of Buckingham East and the wider county
• Never lose sight of the need to achieve true value for (taxpayers’) money so that our place, our county, and our world supports well-being and prosperity for all

Working with and for the people and communities of Buckingham East

I was co-opted onto Buckingham Town Council in June 2011. I have been working hard for local people ever since as a councillor, community activist and social media moderator. I would greatly like to serve you as your councillor on Buckinghamshire Council 

Over the next months and years, Buckinghamshire Council will be making many  decisions that will affect the lives of thousands of local people as we emerge from the pandemic. For me, HOW those decisions are made, is almost as important as WHAT those decisions are. 

I believe that citizens should be at the heart of local politics. 

For the last 40+ years, I have been working in and with local government, with a career spanning housing, public health, learning disability, community safety, leadership development, commissioning and organisational change management. Throughout this time, I have been committed to what is called ‘Asset Based Community Development’. 

We are a community rich in many assets - kind & generous people, a beautiful & green environment, vibrant & supportive institutions (local businesses & our university for example), dozens of voluntary & community associations and social media that connects, surprises, challenges & informs… We need to have a council that harnesses all those assets. As your councillor, I will do all I can to make that happen.

All I want is a sustainable world, in which everyone can have dreams and ambitions and the wherewithal to achieve these. That is my politics in a nutshell. If that chimes with you, please vote for me. Thank you. 

Over nearly ten years, I have helped the Buckingham Town Council team become more strategic and more focused on delivering outcomes for the town. My contributions include:

• persisting with getting solar energy into our buildings (we are nearly there!) as part of our Climate Emergency strategy
• celebrating the birth of community nursing here in Buckingham more than 125 years ago by initiating a local health festival
• building stronger links between the Town Council and the University of Buckingham by working closely with the Vice Chancellor
• initiating the country's first ever 'Good Endings Fair' designed to help people plan for the future when they will no longer be around, overcoming some of the fear of death, wills and funerals
• campaigning on road safety in our town including the (then) infamous London Road roundabout
• working with and for young people to get a new and well designed skate park in place and other activities for children

Positions

• Councillor for Buckingham Town Council (BTC)
• BTC member of Buckingham Youth Centre management team
• BTC representative on the Aylesbury Vale Association of Local Councils executive
• Trustee of the Buckingham Almshouses and Welfare Charity
• Trustee of the League of Friends of Buckingham Hospital
• Volunteer with North Bucks Young Carers
• Founder and moderator of ‘Buckingham: What Matters to You’ Facebook group 
• Business: Jon Harvey Associates (leadership and organisation development) since 2008
• Author: Cracking Questions - To help you really improve Productivity (also available free as a podcast)
• Former NSPCC ‘speak out’ volunteer, youth mentor and school governor