What Lanchester Needs, And How To Get It

I have been a Lanchester Parish Councillor since 1999, a governor of Lanchester Endowed Parochial Primary School since 1999, and a governor of Saint Bede’s since 2000. I am now seeking election to Derwenstide District Council, and re-election as a Parish Councillor, on three simple grounds:

Cut Derwentside’s Council Tax, by making the new Stanley Town Council pay for the services in Stanley provided by Parish Councils elsewhere, including Lanchester;

Recognise the existence of poor people in Lanchester, and target services accordingly (there are more people dependent on benefits in Lanchester than the entire population of Burnhope, where by no means everyone in poor); and

Stop the setting up of a regional assembly by the back door, which is the reason for the latest demented scheme to introduce unitary local government in County Durham.

I am also campaigning for a Youth Worker to clear the teenage gangs of Lanchester's streets, because, yes, it is on account of their having nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. I am a pro-countryside, pro-nation, pro-family candidate. And I have traditional Christian, Catholic values.

I pass no comemnt on any other candidate's values. But no other candidate is saying any of the first three things, let alone all of them, and cannot see, in all charity, how anyone can be in favour of helping the poor while remaining a member of what has become of the "Labour" Party. Nor, in the same vein, can I see how anyone can be in favour of the countryside, the nation or the family while remaining a member of what has become of the "Conservative" Party. And no one is currently doing anything to secure a Youth Worker for Lanchester. (I am a little disappointed to have no Lib Dem opponent: I was going to hit any such candidate over church schools.)

The only way to vote for these things is to vote for David Lindsay on 3rd May.