We invited each candidate to supply a statement and photograph. We have published their submissions verbatim, no editorial changes have been made. Any errors are those of the candidate.
Party description: Conservative Party candidate
As someone who has lived in the area all my life I have the privilege to be standing again as the Conservative Candidate for Rye and Eastern Rother division in the East Sussex County Council elections on 6th May
I live in Pett with my wife, daughter and grandchildren having moved back to the village that I grew up in to look after my then ageing parents, sadly now passed away.
Having been to school in Rye and then run my own plumbing and heating business in the area I think I’m well placed to understand the difficulties and opportunities that exist .
As the Leader of East Sussex County Council for the last 8 years I’m proud of our achievements especially the way in which since the beginning of the pandemic we have with our partners ensured that the services that are needed have been delivered.
I have lobbied and worked with Government to make sure that we in East Sussex continue to be best placed to provide good quality services for the most vulnerable and as we get through this pandemic we are able to continue the support to allow businesses to recover and the economy to grow allowing people to get back to good quality jobs.
We have been and continue to work hard with our NHS colleagues in the delivery of the vaccine roll out by identifying the most vulnerable and those shielding along with frontline Care staff that have provided the essential services.
The record of the Conservative administration that I have led is a very positive one Children’s Services judged by Ofsted to be outstanding, our Working together with our NHS partners has been recognised by the care quality commission as an example of Best practice
Our record on value for money and financial competence is there for all to see having set balance budgets and delivered on them over many years
Our record on climate change shows we are no longer sending waste to landfill in East Sussex instead we are converting to provide energy for 25000 homes, we have reduced our carbon emissions from the Councils Estate by 30% and have a target of further reductions of 13% year on year until net zero.
We continue to support the growth of local renewable electricity, such as solar and off shore wind;deliver a walking and cycling infrastructure programme;work with partners to rollout electric vehicle charging infrastructure
We are investing in improvements in our roads and are pressing Government to improve its infrastructure such as A21, A259 and the high speed rail connection to Hastings Bexhill and Eastbourne
The work setting the way forward on transport issues can be seen in the Transport strategy produced by Transport for South East which I Chair
To deliver many of the things that we are all concerned or interested in it generally is best or only deliverable in partnership, I’m pleased that over the years I have managed to build many of the good relationships necessary to get things done, working with individuals, Town and Parish Councillors, District Councillors, Health Colleagues, MPs and Government Ministers to list but a few and I’m confident that those and many more contacts will be needed to deliver going forward
On 6th May you have the opportunity to KEEP EAST SUSSEX IN SAFE HANDS by voting fo Keith Glazier.
Contact. cllrkeithglazier@gmail.com
Mobile. 07957 377844
Image Credits: Keith Glazier .
A lot of what is said here needs challenging.
On good quality services for the most vulnerable: UK food bank usage increased from 40,000 parcels in 2010 to 1,600,000 at the beginning of 2020, a 4000% increase. Since then, as reported in Rye News, the Rye food bank usage has tripled. Huge credit to the volunteers and supporters, but why is immiseration a record for the Conservatives to be proud of?
On supporting businesses: the central Government grant to local authorities has been gradually removed since 2010, meaning that residents and businesses have to pick up the shortfall. This is why your council tax has been increasing year on year and the service provision by ESCC has been declining, with a nationwide £10bn reduction in local authority expenditure compared to 2010. And yet big multinationals like Amazon, Ebay, Google pay less than 3% in tax.
On climate change: the incinerator in Newhaven, euphemistically named ‘ Energy from Waste’, is as polluting as a coal fired power station in terms of carbon emissions. The contract with Veolia requires a minimum amount of ‘feedstock’, which means that a lot of recyclable waste gets burned and the recycling figures cannot increase. It is no solution at all. We need to reduce, re-use, refill, repair and recycle far more.
On supporting local renewable electricity: what offshore wind? Which solar projects? The state of footpaths and cycleways in and around Rye is dire, and there is no commitment to provide the Rye Greenway. What happened to all that funding promised by central Government last year?
On electric vehicle charging infrastructure: there are only 5 publicly accessible charging points in all of Rother, compared to a UK total of 14,500 locations. That is about a fifth of the UK average. ESCC has done precisely nothing to improve this.
The Conservatives cannot be trusted to deliver on either social or environmental justice, it is just more of the same. They cannot even be trusted to keep your taxes down.
I would welcome a video debate with the other candidates on these issues.
Dominic Manning, Green Party candidate for county council election
07925745405 / dom.manning@btinternet.com
Yes how Green is our Conservative run County Council?
I asked a Freedom of Information question on how many trees the council had actually planted. In the council year 2017/18 they planted no trees at all and in the following year, only20.
And in reply to another FOIA question, East Sussex County Council told me that with regard to their contract to use the incinerator at Newhaven, they could not tell me what penalties they would have to pay during the now 30 year contract, if the input to the incinerator dropped below certain levels. This was on grounds of commercial confidentiality.
Please note that I am also a candidate in the curent election for Northern Rother, which includes The adjacent parishes of Rye Foreign and Peasmarsh