I’m standing for Labour in Yelverton Rural because I believe every voter should have the opportunity to vote for a Labour candidate. The Conservatives expect to win which makes them complacent. Devon deserves better.

Labour’s manifesto (https://devon.laboursites.org/manifesto/ ) shows clearly how Conservative policies have worked against us: “Devon Labour believes the calculation methods used to allocate resources to local government are unfair and fail to take into account the demands of a sparsely populated county, with an ageing population and a large network of public highway to maintain.” (p5)

Because of this, Devon gets less than the national average per pupil for education, and less than the average per person for health services. This is a result of eleven years of Tory austerity which has led to a 62% real terms reduction in funding to Devon County Council.  Impacting especially on young people with special education needs and disabilities.

About me : I worked in London for 19 years as a qualified social worker before moving to Plymouth in 1993. I retired in 2013 having latterly worked as a senior manager in Plymouth Children’s Social Care. After retirement my wife and I moved to this beautiful area of West Devon in 2015. We now live in Tavistock.  I’m a socialist and passionate about environmental issues.

If elected I would :

• ♦ Campaign to demand more funding for local services;
• ♦ Push to accelerate the Council’s response to the climate and biodiversity crisis ;
• ♦ Seek to ensure that no housing development takes place without guarantees to provide the adequate provision of essential facilities, such as school and health infrastructure ;
• ♦ Promote ‘affordable housing schemes-housing that people can afford, especially for local sons and daughters ;
• ♦ Support the early implementation of the Yelverton to Roborough cycle path: a win win for cyclists and road users.
• ♦ And I promise to work my hardest responding to residents’ concerns and representing them in Devon County Council.