First week in post

It is Wednesday today and I was elected on Thursday night last week, so it has nearly been a week.

I thought I would give you a quick update on what I have been up to so far.
I signed the papers accepting my membership of the Labour Group and picked up my pass from Municipal Buildings on Friday.

On Saturday I set up access to my council email.

On Monday I met the Chief Whip for an induction, and discussed which committees it would be appropriate for me to sit on - and also where the vacancies are that need filling. Thankfully it looks like those two things may coincide. I won't reveal which committees those are until after the council meeting that approves the appointment though. 

On Monday night I gave my first Councillor's report to my local Labour Party branch meeting.  I also spent some time helping a resident with serious neighbour from hell problems.

On Tuesday afternoon I met the council's Parking Enforcement services team, along with local residents, in the Kingfisher and Cygnet Drive area of Preston Farm, on the run up to the Water Avens Way estate,  to talk about how we can make pedestrians safer. There is a lot of inconsiderate parking, mostly from one of the car dealerships, some of it is thoughtless, mostly it is not illegal but some of it is. Hopefully we have come up with a potential resolution which may require Councillor Javed and I spending some of our local community participation budget. I will report back on this when there is more news.

I spent a couple of hours this morning with Marc Stephenson, head of Care For Your Area, Civil Enforcement, CCTV, Waste, Recycling and various other services that are hugely important to local residents. I discussed our priorities - those that I highlighted in my campaign material which could be called my mini manifesto -  so that he and his team can focus on them. These included street cleansing, bin presentation, alley dumping, parking, and various other things. He also took me into the CCTV monitoring station which was very interesting. He showed me where all of our local cameras are and I watched some of them in operation.

I also asked Marc about the pigeon droppings under the bridge on Oxbridge Lane and he gave me the contact details for network rail. I have written to them this afternoon  asking about them putting up a net under the bridge to deter roosting birds and will let you know what they say.

A big thank you to Marc for his time.

This afternoon I spent a couple of hours with Sergeant Mark Doherty talking about issues related to Crime and ASB that residents have also raised with me over the last 6 weeks on the campaign trail. I took him through the mini manifesto too, talking particularly about prostitution in the Yarm Road area, drug related activity, and speeding cars. I also talked about the issue on Mulberry Wynd where cars and vans are using the estate as a cut through from Yarm Road to Bowesfield Lane and driving dangerously and at speed. We had a very fruitful and constructive discussion. Sergeant Doherty filled me in on the work already underway and we have agreed some further activities in each of those areas too. I will write about them separately and in detail in the next few days.

I am really looking forward to working with the police on your behalf. A big thank you to Sergeant Doherty for his time.

I have also been putting my thank you leaflet together. It will be going to the printers as soon as I have confirmed the dates of the next tenants and residents groups with the relevant chairs because I made a commitment to advertise them in all my publications.

I have appointments in the diary to talk to Housing chiefs about empty houses which was in my manifesto, and with the officer in charge of our Community Participation Budget so that I can understand how much I can helpfully commit to your priorities. 

And finally I have spent quite a lot of time tackling casework for individual residents and individual streets.

A busy first week but I am pleased to be making progress already on some of the things I pledged.

A big thank you to the voters of Parkfield and Oxbridge

I am proud and humbled to have been elected as the Labour and Co-operative Councillor for Parkfield and Oxbridge ward in Stockton on Tees.

Thank you everyone who voted for me - and a big thank you too, to the huge team of volunteers who supported the campaign, helping me to achieve our aim of knocking on every door - and delivering thousands of leaflets.




Because this was a byelection I won't serve the four years that a councillor ordinarily does, the next election will be on the first Thursday in May in 2019 - so that is in roughly 18 month's time.

That is not a very long time to achieve everything that I have pledged to work on, on behalf of residents but I will do my best and will certainly hope to be making decent progress by that date.

In future posts I will spell out the pledges I made during the election, those of your priorities I have promised to tackle and give you regular updates.

I will also share details of any community events and meetings that I hear about so that everyone knows what is happening in our area.