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Voters in the Wescott East ward will go to the polls on Thursday, August 24, to elect a councillor to represent them on Wokingham Town Council. Wokingham Today is pleased to give each councillor the opportunity to highlight why residents should vote for them.
From James Pett, Conservative candidate
Wokingham is a town that I very proudly call my home, and I am never surprised that so many people from around the world want to come and live here.
Over the last 15 years, Wokingham residents have all invested a great deal of time and suffered significant inconvenience to breathe new life into our town centre, build new schools, and create new green spaces – all aimed at nurturing progress and making our community a better place for everyone to live.
It’s therefore disheartening to witness this hard-won progress undermined by short-sighted choices and flawed economic decisions.
We all notice it – the overgrown grass verges, litter strewn about. It’s not the impression of our community that we want visitors to have, and it’s certainly not how we want to live.
The result? Foxes, vermin and ticks, not the thriving environment we aimed for.
Overflowing bins and piled-up waste – it’s a far cry from what we expect after paying our significant amounts of council tax.
Our investments deserve much better management.
And then there’s the head-scratcher of the increased parking charges.
It costs less to park and shop in Woodley than in Wokingham town centre. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially as we see our local businesses suffer due to decreased foot traffic.
Wokingham is vibrant, catering to all ages with its array of activities. It’s a healthy and desirable place to live. Yet, we’re confronted with short-sighted policies that seem to disregard our collective voice.
It’s time for a change.
I can’t stand by and watch our community lose its shine. Our investment deserves a vibrant, well-maintained environment – one that we can be proud of. But reality paints a different picture. Our streets deserve regular attention, our bins should be collected, and our infrastructure upheld – it’s what we’ve paid for.
As a proud member of this community, I can’t idly watch as our progress crumbles. Our town’s legacy is at stake. I’m stepping up, not just because I’m proud of our community, but because I believe in taking action to preserve what we’ve built.
This isn’t about eloquent promises; it’s about practical solutions. I’m committed to reversing the damage inflicted by short-sighted decisions. Let’s focus on building a stronger community – one where our hard-earned taxes translate into the services we rightfully deserve.
We can’t let our community fade away. We can’t let others decide the fate of the place we call home. Together, we can set a new course – one that upholds our progress and retains the charm that defines Wokingham.
It’s time to stand up and take action, to ensure that our community’s promise remains alive and well for generations to come.
My vision is clear: a community where our investments translate into tangible improvements, where our streets are clean, and our infrastructure is well-maintained.
If you are someone who shares in this vision, I urge you to take action and use your Wescott East by-election vote for me on Thursday 24 August at St Crispin’s Polling Station.
From Lou Timlin, Liberal Democrat candidate.
Community really matters to me, and it matters to the Liberal Democrats. This really drew me to the party when I joined earlier this year. When voters in Wescott East go to the polls on 24th August, I’m hoping residents will place their trust in me to continue the Lib Dem tradition of working for them and for the good of our town.
From being a school governor, volunteering at a local charity, and delivering hundreds of COVID vaccines as a volunteer vaccinator, I’ve always thrown myself into helping our community. During the Covid-19 pandemic I delivered food parcels to vulnerable people who were isolated in that incredibly difficult time. So many other Lib Dems were part of that tremendous team, demonstrating the values that drive us. The Liberal Democrats have made supporting the vulnerable a priority since taking control of the Borough and Town Councils last year, recognizing the pressures of the cost of living crisis on households and the council’s own finances.
I’ve been working with the Lib Dems locally for some time, helping put together a strong local strategy for tackling violence against women and girls. The Lib Dems always showed they were willing to put aside party politics for the good of everyone in Wokingham.
In Wescott Ward the Liberal Democrats have a strong record of local action. £250,000 to fit out the Montague Park Community Centre was only secured from the Borough Council after hard lobbying by the local Lib Dem councillors. This is important to the Montague Park community and I want to ensure we have a top-quality facility for people in the area. I’m also following with interest the consultations on the future of St. Crispin’s leisure centre and am determined that it will remain available for use by the school.
This election will be a close one – Labour have campaigned hard and I wish their candidate the best – but elections in Wescott are always close between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. Labour were third in May and a long way behind. To keep us moving forward as a town, and for more strong representation for the local community, please vote for Lou Timlin on the 24th August. Vote for the Lib Dem candidate and team with a strong record of action in our town.
From Aaron Pearson, Labour candidate.
I am standing for election in the Wokingham Town Council by-election for Wescott East ward
because I want to serve my community.
In 2010, like many young people, I was backing the Liberal Democrats. Their pledge to not raise tuition fees captured the hearts, support and votes of a whole generation of young people.
After rooting for Nick Clegg in 2010, I felt so betrayed by what the Liberal Democrats did once in government. For people of my generation the sense of betrayal was visceral and it turned me off politics for years.
Fast forward to 2022 and the sheer awfulness of the direction the country was heading under the Conservatives prompted me to look again at politics. Looking at the options, I decided that the Labour Party was the most in tune with my values and I joined with the intention of making a difference.
I do not know what I was expecting to find but I found a group of local councillors and volunteers who are totally focussed in making our area a better place to live, in whatever way they can.
Community clean-up sessions, volunteering with community speed watch and getting rid of mindless graffiti were all ways in which local Labour volunteers and councillors were working behind the scenes to address some of the issues in our area.
This is what politics should be about – serving the community, not breaking promises.
When the Conservative councillor for Wescott East ward resigned, I was asked to be Labour’s candidate in the by-election. It was made clear to me that, if elected, I was expected to commit myself wholeheartedly to the service of my residents and that I could not just disappear to Wokingham Town Hall for the next four years.
As I live in the ward, making my residents’ area a better place to live will be the same as making my own area – my family’s area – a better place to live.
I live in the Montague Park area of the ward. Our family was one of the first to move in, back in 2015. Apart from my time at university in Bath, I have grown up with all the frustration occasioned by the continual failure of developers to do what they said they would do; and the inability of the Council to hold the developers to account. Unless you live here, you cannot truly appreciate the frustration.
A case in point is the long-awaited community centre in Montague Park. The developer pledged £250,000 for this centre. I was surprised to see the Liberal Democrats taking credit for this funding – given the commitment was made by the developer nearly ten years ago! As with other issues in the ward, this is personal to me. This will be my community centre for my community.
In another part of the ward, the Liberal Democrats are threatening to close St Crispin’s Leisure Centre, a much-valued facility for residents living in this part of Wokingham and beyond. I am certain a win for the Liberal Democrats will be read as the green light for going ahead with the closure.
I was astonished to discover that the resignation of the Conservative councillor took the
Conservatives from three councillors down to two on Wokingham Town Council. There are 25 seats in total with 15 of the rest being occupied by Liberal Democrats, six by Labour, one independent and one vacancy. This means that control of the Council will not change as a result of the by-election.
Rather than just another Liberal Democrat on the town council, I hope the residents of Wescott East will give me – the only candidate who lives in the area – the chance to serve my neighbours, my neighbourhood and our community.
