Meet the scientists!

The people main role I have as a councillor is to be able to help people in the ward I represent. I regularly take phone calls and e-mails from people in the ward who need help with a problem bothering them. I also attend two regular ward meeting, there I have built up a good rapour with the attendees, police, streetscene and local residents. I also attend council meetings, Children and young peoples scrutiny and sometimes I sit on a HR panel. There is also many events that I get invited to which has opened my eyes to so much good work that happens in Darlington. This also allows me to meet many more, interesting people. The other thing I do as a Liberal Democrat Councillor is keep the people in my ward informed of what I have done in the ward to help and any major developments that may affect them, This is done by the production and delivery to every house in the ward of a newsletter. I am one of three coouncillors in my ward and we try to deliver a newsletter every 6-8 weeks. While delivering the Newsletter we are also walking round the ward speaking to people and checking for things we can do without the need for residents contacting us.

As a mum, Supply, teacher, councillor and carer for my mum and dad I do not have one day the same as any other. What I do regularly is get up, dressed and get my daughter up and out for school. Somedays I will get a phone call to go and teach, which can be anywhere in County Durham, North Yorkshire, Stockton, Redcar or Teesside. I will then spend the day teaching. If I don’t get a call I will either do housework at my house or my parents house, do odd jobs for my parents or take one of them to a hospital appointment (both parents are now disabled). Some time I will do some delivery of leaflets either in my ward or in one of the other wards in either Darlington or Sedgefield. I will try and get done to be at home for my daughter coming in from school, or to pick her up to take her to one of her after school activities. As both my daughter and myself have regular evening activities we tend to eat early on those nights then I will either take my daughter to diving, trampolining or stagecoach, I could also be at a meeting on an evening. If we are both free on an evening we will either stay in play with the guinipigs and watch tv or bake cakes. The other option for an evening is to go to my parents and I will cook a meal for us all (usually something new I have found in a cook book or of the web)

I have been working with other Lib Dems in the Northern Region and we would like an arena like the O2 in County Durham. If I am the Youth Champion I would take a more active role and try to get the arena within 10 miles of Darlington. Before that arena get built I would push for more concerts at the Northern Echo arena when the football season is over. If the O2 type arena gets built we could try and get the X Factor to come to it. I would also like to see more areas for teenagers to hang out, not oganised, a starting point would be shelters in parks so you can be together in most types of weather. I would like to see more celebs coming to Darlington and encourage them to come into schools to talk to young people. I would also like to keep the Forum. I would also take some time to come and listen to see if there are any other areas of priorities that you as the future of Darlington would like to see happen. I know that there are many good ideas out there and I would like to hear them. We could have so much fun getting projects up and running, to see some of your ideas happen.