Freemantle's Choice: Brian Parnell
The election campaign for Southampton City council elections on 3rd of May is now well underway.
This will be an important election for the city as it will hopefully break the political deadlock that has existed since last May when all 3 parties stood on 16 Councillors each.
Here is a list of candidates for Freemantle Ward:
Councillor Brian Parnell - Conservative
Harry Mitchell - Labour
Darren Pickering - Green
Juliet Williams - Lib Dem
Brian Parnell is a well known figure in Freemantle, having served as a ward councillor for 16 years. Brian was first elected in 1979 and also served as a ward councillor for Shirley for 4 years.
Brian is chairman of the Freemantle Community Centre user group and is the Conservative's Children's Services Spokesman. He also serves on the city's adoption panel.
Since being re-elected to the council for Freemantle in 2002, Brian has worked tremendously hard and got a lot done. Some of his key achievements:
- Fought successfully to secure over £1m of investment into the Freemantle Community Centre which will be modernised and used in part for adults with learning disabilities.
- Worked with Shirley Pool and other parties and backed a lottery bid to improve the whole area around the community centre.
- Campaigned to save the Freemantle Civil Service Ground from development by its owners Bovis Homes.
- Secured council funds so that the land can be purchased for use by the local community and St Marks and Regents Park schools.
- Secured council commitment to bid for about £25m of Government money for a new school on the St Marks site.
- Campaigned against the loss of family housing in the ward and inappropriate developments.
- Fought for local residents who want parking schemes introduced in their roads.
- Stopped Labour cuts of £333,000 to vital children's social services which would have seen the loss of family centres in the city.
- Campaigned to keep council tax down and to introduce a 10% reduction in council tax for pensioner households.
- Campaigned for free pensioner travel across all of Hampshire.
In addition Brian has dealt with hundreds of indvidual problems for local residents on a whole range of matters, such as parking, housing issues, crime, planning etc.
In 2002 Brian also served as the Mayor of the City. In addition to representing Southampton with dignity he raised lots of money for his mayoral charity Rose Road.
I very much hope that Brian will be re-elected to continue the good work he does for the area.
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