Anthony was asked to answer this question- You should vote for me in the Panteg election because– and this is his answer.
I’m standing in Panteg ward alongside Norma Parrish and Nathan Yeowell. If you live in Griffithstown or Sebastopol, please use your three votes for Norma, Nathan and me. I’m standing again because I love representing people and working in our community to improve our area. I believe that working as a team, and working alongside fantastic local community groups, we have achieved a great deal despite the difficulties of the past two years and the lack of funding of the past decade.
During the pandemic, we’ve been proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with local groups helping those affected by Covid-19. I’ve helped local support groups as a volunteer myself and we’ve ensured that the council has acted too – for example delivering over 100 tonnes of food support to local foodbanks and community groups through FareShare Cymru, or by extending our nationally recognised Discretionary Housing Payment scheme to help people experiencing financial difficulties.
Here in Panteg, we’ve supported local sports clubs and community groups and worked hard with groups like Friends of Fishpond Park, to help them with their brilliant work, bringing the community together and bringing the park back to life. But there is always so much more to do – that’s why the Community Renewal Fund we’ve pledged to launch is so important.
As a candidate, I know it’s tempting to promise to spend more money on everything – but as council leader, I know that promising to do that whilst also pledging to freeze council tax would be impossible, and I’m not prepared to make impossible promises. What I will promise is to work hard to bring in more money to our community, and to make every pound stretch further.
Locally, I love our canal and want to work with the council and the Bridge 46 to Five Locks Canal Group to improve it. As a junior football coach, I see the huge value of physical exercise for people of all ages and believe we can use our brilliant outdoor environment to get people more active, with the positive impact that can have on physical and mental wellbeing. But our local environment is under threat from climate change, so we also have to play a part in reducing carbon emissions and averting a climate crisis. Talking to people on the doorstep, its also clear more needs to be done to help people through the cost of living crisis, and locally we will continue to take action to help rather than walk on by.
These challenges cannot be faced by lone voices. The last two years have shown we need to work together – that our communities are inter-dependent, not independent. We need strong teams of Labour councillors, working as a team to stand up for our communities.
Our manifesto is an ambitious but realistic plan to build a better future for all in Torfaen – to build a stronger, fairer, greener, cleaner, more active and more prosperous Torfaen.
And that’s why I’m proud to be Labour group leader and one of 40 Labour candidates – the only group standing for every seat, in every community in Torfaen. You can find out more on Twitter at @TorfaenLabour or on our Torfaen Labour Facebook page.
Click here to read a full list of all the candidates standing in the Torfaen County Borough Council elections on Thursday 5 May 2022.