Greens line up housing and planning experts to fight 'battleground' ward

17 September 2002

The Greens have selected a housing journalist, an environmental council officer and a teacher to contest the new ward of Hanover & Elmgrove which is a Green target in next May’s Brighton & Hove city council elections.

The party is lining up well-known Hanover-based housing campaigner and former Labour party activist, Bill Randall, 59 on the ballot alongside Georgia Wrighton, 34, a local government sustainable development officer and Rob Jarrett, 43, a college science teacher.

The new Hanover & Elm Grove Ward is a top target for the Greens who are hopeful of taking seats from New Labour in May. In May 1999 when the council was last elected, the Greens were the main challengers to Labour in the old Hanover Ward and, with two sitting Labour councillors retiring, could win a seat with a swing of less than 10% from Labour.

"People in Hanover & Elmgrove are disillusioned with the New Labour administration and want a change," explained Bill Randall, "In its love affair with hype and celebrities, Labour seems to have forgotten about the bread and butter issues such as housing, refuse collection and crime prevention, which are important to people here."

"Green councillors would work hard to achieve radical improvements for people in the ward - in local services and the environment. We would push for a special ‘Green Team’ in Hanover which would be responsible for keeping the streets clean, dealing with dumped cars, fly tipping and graffiti and work with Magpie to improve recycling in the neighbourhood. The local agenda would be set by a neighbourhood forum, whose membership would include the three ward councillors, community association representatives, local people and representatives from the many small businesses in the area."

Key campaign issues for the Greens in the run up to the election will be the empty homes, the Hanover Community Centre, crime, housing and community safety improvements.

Biographical Information

Bill Randall

Bill Randall lives in Hanover and is married with three grown-up children.

He is a journalist who has written about community and environmental issues for national newspapers and specialist magazines since the 1970s. Housing Journalist of the Year in 2000, he is the co-author of recently published guidance on the development of sustainable communities for housing associations. A former Chair of Shelter¹s National Housing Aid Trust, he is a Trustee of Age Concern, Brighton, Hove and Portslade.

Married with three children, he lives in Hanover. Bill is also Deputy Co-ordinator of the Brighton & Hove Green Party and chair of its Housing Group.

His interests are football and cricket, walking in the countryside, opera and jazz, theatre and the cinema. He is ‘staunch supporter’ of The Geese Public House on Southover St.

Georgia Wrighton

Age 34, Single, Lived in Hanover since May 2001. Occupation; Sustainable Development Officer, Adur District Council since April 2002.

Georgia’s main work is to lead on the development of Local Strategic Partnership and Community Strategy. Ensuring that Community Strategy is sustainable and socially inclusive. She is also involved with other environmental / biodiversity work and participates in West Sussex Sustainable Business Partnership sits on the steering group for ‘Adur World Oceans Day’ which promotes biodiversity in marine environment.

Prior to that Georgia was Local Plans and Policy Planning Officer at Crawley Borough Council since August 2001. Prior to that Development Control Planning Officer at London Borough of Lewisham since July 1990.

Key Policy interests:- Animal Rights, Healthy local communities/community empowerment; Open Spaces/Wildlife; Sustainable Transport, Town Planning;Community Planning/LSPs.

Statement:

"I believe we have enormous potential in Hanover for local involvement and action for the benefit of the whole community. If elected I would work towards the establishment of a forum or partnership for the area which would bring service deliverers and the community together to tackle important local issues like social exclusion, drugs and crime as well as sustainable transport and open space improvements."

Rob Jarrett

Rob Jarrett is 43. He has lived in the city since 1983. He has been married for 19 years and he has an 18 year old daughter who attended Cardinal Newman school and then BHASVIC.

Rob worked as an analyst/programmer for 10 years, first for a small software company based in Grand Parade and then for the Alliance and Leicester at Hove Park. After redundancy he changed career to education. He worked as a special needs assistant at Falmer, Patcham House and Cardinal Newman schools.

Rob completed his teacher training PGCE at Brighton University with training placements at Dorothy Stringer High School and Lewes Tertiary College. He worked for a year at Thomas Bennett Community College in Crawley and is now Science Co-ordinator at Croydon College.