I’m standing to be a a representative to the local community on local issues in the forthcoming Hutton South by-election.

Full statement

Under the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in Brentwood we’ve seen council tax increase by 46% in the past ten years yet services have suffered. The council even intends to reduce our bin collections to fortnightly and now charges us extra to recycle garden waste. Our roads are strewn with potholes and our High Street shops are increasingly boarded up.

Crime has soared under the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner. He sits on the local council. Detection rates have plummeted to the extent that criminals committing the most serious sexual crimes in Essex have barely a 3% chance of being prosecuted now.

The Conservative Lib Dem council is now planning to take a bulldozer to our countryside and is keen to build a huge new town within our borough with no consultation amongst local people.

I will fight against all of these failures and expose the huge financial waste that exists within our local authority.

The Lib Dem Tory uni party is not fit for purpose here. I’ll be a loud voice for Hutton South, the area in which I’ve lived for years, as I was when i was a Brentwood councillor a decade ago.