Candidates on Holme straight in election campaign...
CONSERVATIVES are pushing hard in the Holme Valley during the current election campaign, hoping to retain one seat and to wrest another from independent rivals.
In Holme Valley South the departure of Clr Nigel Patrick - currently the Mayor of Kirklees - who is standing down has given hope to Labour, which won the seat in 2019.
And in Holme Valley North the Tories are chasing veteran independent Terry Lyons and hoping to build on the support they got last year when they were just 113 votes behind lead independent member Charles Greaves.
However there has been an upset in the form of a “misleading” Conservative election leaflet that prompted complaints to Kirklees Council and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
In Kirkburton the Greens continue to pursue the Conservatives. Green candidates have come second to the Tories in recent years but with a sizeable gap in voting figures. Recent national issues affecting the Tories, such as partygate, could potentially prompt more movement this year.
■■ Kingsley Hill (Lib Dems): Large developments around Honley, Meltham and Brockholes have not come with improvements to local facilities. Huddersfield Road by Meltham Mills has been left in a shocking state. We need to do more to support our communities so that everyone can meet the challenges in the years ahead. ■■Susan Laird (Reform UK): Look to grow as much food as possible by making use of the expertise of our farmers. We should stop building on greenfield sites using brown sites instead. Find ways to help the people who will struggle. Stop labelling people using LGBT, woke, etc, and work together.
■■Ben Lockley (Labour): Having been brought up in Honley, and my family coming from Meltham generations back, I would be a strong local representative for our area. Working as a carer in a dementia home, I saw the Conservative government’s mishandling of the pandemic firsthand. Vote Labour on May 5 to send a message to Boris Johnson. ■■Terry Lyons (Independent): Our priorities: Improving roads, helping schools, improving playspaces, extending the Meltham Greenway, creating more off-street parking and safer roads/streets. Bring back the committee system where all voices are heard and get rid of the current Cabinet system where one party dictates. We would like to freeze or reduce council tax.
■■Tony McGrath (Conservative): As an active member of our community, I seek the opportunity to serve and help deliver change of control in Kirklees. One of my priorities is ensuring traffic hotspots get the action they deserve. A Conservative council will allocate £4.5m to tackle traffic hotspots to improve traffic flow, reducing pollution.
■■Samuel Midgley (Green): We are losing many green fields to development and losing much valued countryside due to government backing big developers against the wishes of local communities. Greens are pushing for changes to planning policy to give local people more of a say in what is and isn’t developed in their communities. have lived in Holme Valley South for more than 25 years, so the issues that concern residents concern me, too. I am standing so we can get on with our priorities: keeping council tax low, protecting our green spaces, more money for our roads, and fixing Labour’s tip operations.
■■Moses Crook (Labour): Did not respond to a request to send a pledge. ■■Darryl Gould (Green): As a Green Party Holme Valley parish councillor, I’m very much involved in projects to improve the local community. If elected as a Kirklees councillor we need to ensure that any new building is sustainable with the infrastructure needed to support it in place. Otherwise it should not be approved.
■■Andrew McCaig (Lib Dems): We need more investment to sort out potholed roads and cracked pavements. Since lockdown, many more people have been using our rural footpaths and many of them are in a poor state. The council’s response to the climate emergency could be so much better, local