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Mid Suffolk District Council Elections - May 7th 2015

Stradbroke and Laxfield Ward Including Wilby

James Hargrave

LOCAL ELECTION This local election on May the 7th will determine who runs your District Council.

The District Council looks after local planning, your social housing and environmental health, it picks up your refuse and recycling, and it also levies and collects your council tax.

Since 2003 the Council has been run by the Conservatives. However, it is important that there is a strong opposition which ensures that they dont take this position for granted. For the last four years the Green Party has led the opposition.

We have challenged the ruling groups position on areas such as planning, where their lack of an effective approach means that developers can now ignore the views of our communities, transparency of the budget and also plans to allow the Council to borrow 25 million for activities which they refuse to specify. We have also pushed to ensure more sustainable social housing and to create better cycle routes and footpaths. Now is the time you need strong local Green councillors to fight your corner.

James Hargrave candidate for Stradbroke and Laxfield Ward James Hargrave grew up in West Yorkshire and has lived in Stradbroke for 10 years with his three children attending local schools.

James has been a proactive Parish Councillor in Stradbroke for four years.

During this time, he has campaigned successfully on a number of local

issues, including :

against the building of a Co-op store opposite the primary school, on the grounds that it would be unsafe for children at the school and would increase traffic through the village, as well as campaigning

for small, affordable housing developments but against large, unsustainable housing developments that would change the rural character of Stradbroke.

Furthermore, having being deeply involved in the campaign to save libraries across Suffolk in 2011, he is now a Trustee as well as Vice Chairman and Secretary of the Stradbroke Courthouse and Library Trust, the local charity behind the recent refurbishment and re-opening of the villages Court House building. The Court House now includes a library, a newly re-opened Post Office, and a soon-to-open community caf. In the future, it will also feature a studio space for a community radio station and storage for the village archives.

For the past seven years, James served as Chair of Governors of Stradbroke Primary School, and he is currently leading the process to create a federation between Stradbrokes and Laxfields primary schools. He is also part of Radio Stradbroke www.radiostradbroke.co.uk and helps to run the village website www.stradbroke.org.uk.

A citizen blogger of some repute, James regularly reports on local education, libraries, and other community news and politics on http://blog.hargrave.org.uk.

To contact James :

07766 711553

01379 388405

james@hargrave.org.uk

If you would like more information about the

Green Party election campaign

www.midsuffolk.greenparty.org.uk

email john@suffolkgreenparty.org.uk

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Printed by Suffolk Greenprint, 3 Wash Lane Corner, Great Finborough, Stowmarket IP14 3BJ Published by Brian Fearnley, 14 Dove Close, Debenham IP14 6RR

Rhodri moved to Parham shortly after he retired as deputy head of a primary school in Wales.

He is standing as a candidate for the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich Constituency in the General Election and also for the Hacheston Ward for Suffolk Coastal District Council.

He was a school governor and community councillor in the Gower village where he lived for fifteen years and he played a prominent part in a successful campaign to create 20mph zones in residential areas around Swansea.

He is now actively campaigning to improve the quality of life for all those who are fortunate enough to live in this part of rural Suffolk.

To contact Rhodri :

01728 768934

10 Willoughby Close

Parham Suffolk

IP13 9NA

Rhodri@suffolkgreenparty.org.uk

www.greenparty.org.uk

General Election - Rhodri Griffiths - Green Party Candidate Central Suffolk and North Ipswich constituency

Where have all the buses gone? "This is a question I get asked time and time again," says Rhodri.

An almost total lack of public transport in much of rural Suffolk is leaving many people, particularly the elderly, isolated and at increased risk of suffering from loneliness and depression. One lady in Hacheston told me that only six years ago there was a decent, regular service with a bus stopping in the village every two hours. Now the Conservative government's bus deregulation policy has brought about the decimation of public transport in the village.

Villages that were once happy, thriving communities are being turned into isolated commuter dormitories where many people have scarcely any reason to step beyond their own back yard. Within a generation, my own village of Parham has lost its school, pub, shop and youth club. As if all this wasn't bad enough, now they've taken away the buses! It's a depressingly familiar story throughout rural Suffolk.