My Record

I was a teacher in local Primary Schools for nearly a decade and a voluntary youth worker before that, and my wife is a teaching assistant. I want to raise aspiration and achievement and fight for investment in services for children. As Leader of the council, together we took Children's Services from 'inadequate' to 'good', with services for care leavers rated 'outstanding', and while the Tories have let schools crumble, we rebuilt them. I was delighted to open the brand new Ashurst Primary School and deliver a modern new facility for Penkford at Willow Bank. We also worked to make sure children and young people are at the heart of the borough's regeneration and investment plans, from giving them access to new careers and opportunities to having a say on what we do and how. 

We've all experienced huge challenges in recent years. In leading the Council through the pandemic I worked with partners from the public, third and private sector to coordinate support for communities and protect the most vulnerable. We set up #StHelensTogether which is now continuing to offer help for those who need it through the cost of living crisis, including supporting the launch of the mobile food pantry and through the ongoing work of our award-winning Inequalities Commission to begin to tackle the long term health inequalities within the borough. New homes, new jobs and new infrastructure is also vital to this, and that's why I worked so hard as Leader to attract investment alongside agreeing an Inclusive Growth Strategy to make sure local people and businesses are at the front of the queue for the opportunities we create. 

Every year the task of setting a balanced budget for the Council gets harder as government funding goes down and demand for essential services like social care goes up, and all public services are facing the same challenge - just like most households and businesses. Working with public, private and third sector partners including schools, the NHS, GPs and more, I led our local campaign calling on the government to provide fair funding for services. I will always be a staunch defender of our public services. We also did all we could to support workers - as Leader I took the decision to give all care workers the Foundation Living Wage, supporting the UNISON campaign.

As Leader of the council we made huge progress on several major projects. We delivered plans and funding for once in a lifetime regeneration of Earlestown and St Helens town centres; we began bringing Earlestown Town Hall back into full public use, with external repairs now complete; we secured Freeport status for Parkside and delivered the Link Road, as promised, before work begins on Phase One; Glass Futures is nearing completion, ready to transform the global glass industry and lead work on decarbonisation across the foundation industries; and we delivered a Local Plan which is ambitious for jobs, homes and infrastructure while protecting the vast majority of our green and open spaces.