This page of my website lets me keep the people who live in the area that I represent fully informed about the work I am doing for them.

My principle aim as a county councillor is to ensure that we get the best possible value for money from our council taxes and to resist above inflation rises.

As a member of the Child Services Scrutiny Committee, I want to ensure that the radical changes announced in the "Putting the Learner First" programme are beneficial to children, properly funded, and introduced sensitively, with the least possible adverse impact on the children affected by the process of changing from one school system to another. I accept that some schools must close, but the transition must be accomplished efficiently and managed humanely, and it is an important part of my role to help achieve this. Regarding Alnwick in particular, I am determined to see Alnwick get a new High School as soon as ever possible, and I maintain vigorous pressure to keep this long overdue facility at the top of the Council's educational priorities.

I am also Chairman of Alnwick Community Development Trust, which has a multi million pound portfolio of projects to manage in Alnwick. This includes a key role in the recent provision of an excellent new community park at Swansfield, oversight of the Alnwick Community Centre and a raft of small scale improvements to the town. For the future, we hop to become involved as a registered social landlord in the provision of affordable housing, a high priority in a town where demand usually exceeds supply.

One of my most rewarding duties is to Chair the totally independent Alnwick Christmas Lights Committee. Our display has become famous throughout the North and shows the community at its very best. About 15 active citizens put hundreds of hours of their time into a very complex task without any reward save the satisfaction of bringing pleasure to hundreds. We switch on at 7PM on the last Friday of November in Alnwick Marketplace: All welcome!

Each county Councillors has an allocation of 15 thousand pounds to spend annually on local schemes. I have committed my first year's allocation to the Community Sports Pitch project in Clayport Ward, which will help bring a much-needed recreational facility to a relatively deprived part of Alnwick. The next year I contributed 10 thousand pounds to the Swansfield Park and some road improvements to the rear of king St as well as funding new double yellow lines down Wagonway Road. This year I will be funding lighting improvements in the town and some small scale road works that are badly needed.

I am vocal and active in trying to secure improvements to Alnwick’s roads infrastructure, with a record of encouraging successes. I have brought some detailed proposals for traffic management in our town centre to the front of the agenda and I wish to see Alnwick take more control of its own traffic management problems via partnership working. To this end, the Community Development Trust that I chair has agreed to support proposals from Alnwick Civic Society for town centre traffic management and improvemnts that will produce a better balance for pedestrians, traders and motorists alike. I am keen to ensure that tourism continues to bring prosperity to Alnwick and all of Northumberland, but it must be managed so as not to damage the very features that make this wonderful area so appealing.