A Big thank you

Copy of letter sent to local press for their letters to the editor section.

May I take this opportunity to thank the residents of Wells st Thomas ward for electing me to serve as your District & City councillor. I look forward over the coming four year term to serve you to the best of my ability in meeting your aspirations for this great city that I have lived in for almost my whole life.

I feel this is a victory for positive campaigning and now look forward to working with all other councillors in taking Wells forward. Thank you to Roy Mackenzie for serving this ward as councillor over the previous years, I do wish you the best of luck for the future.

Of course as I said in my campaign I would like to give you the opportunity for your voices to be heard on the council. So please do not hesitate to get in contact with me at any time. My full contact details will be coming soon on www.mendip.gov.uk in the mean time you can contact me on the below address.

Many thanks once again.

Cllr Andy Denison

15 Penn Close

Wells

A great day for mendip Conservatives

The results are now in and I am pleased to announce that I have been elected to serve the Wells st Thomas ward as their district and city councillor.

The results are as follows:-

Day of election for the Wells St Thomas' District Ward: Thursday, 5^th May 2011

Name	Party	Election Result
Davies, Simon	The Conservative Party Candidate	706
Denison, Andy	The Conservative Party Candidate	808 Elected
Mackenzie, Roy Simon William Stewart	Liberal Democrats	803
Milnes, Maddy	The Green Party	345
Newstead, Glen Travis	The Labour Party Candidate	256
Unwin, Daniel	Liberal Democrats	826 Elected

My own result topped of a brilliant result for the whole of the Mendip Conservatives, So Mendip District council remains in Conservative control and has a good working majority. Overall the results are as follows:-

Conservatives (31)
Liberal Democrats (15)
Independent (1)

If you are interested in seeing the full results for all wards in Mendip District council visit http://www.mendip.gov.uk/

And then to top it all of Britain voted a resounding no2av brilliant!!

AV voting system complex or what!!

With the AV referendum taking place in under three weeks I would like to share with my blog readers the official electoral commission guidelines of both first past the post voting system (FPTP) and the Alternative Vote (AV) so you can see for yourself the complexities of AV from an independent organisation.

Both these guidelines have been directly taken from the booklet from the electoral commission sent to all your homes.

The guideline of our current voting system (FPTP)

“Voting

You vote for one candidate using a cross (X). You must only mark one cross against one candidate.

Counting

The votes for each candidate are put into a pile and counted. The candidate with the most votes wins”

The guideline for the proposed voting system (AV)

“Voting

You use numbers to rank the candidates in order of your preference. You put 1 next to your first choice, 2 next to your second choice, 3 next to your third choice and so on.

You can choose how many candidates to rank. You don’t have to rank every candidate. As long as you rank at least one, your vote will be counted.

Counting

Round one

•               The number 1 votes for each candidate are put into a pile and counted.

•               If a candidate receives more than half the number 1 votes cast, they win and there is no further counting.

•               If no candidate receives more than half the number 1 votes there would be at least one more round of counting.

Round two

•               The candidate with the fewest number 1 votes is removed from the contest – in this case Candidate D.

•               Each ballot paper on Candidate D’s pile is looked at again.

•               If the ballot paper shows a number 2 vote for another candidate, it is added to that candidate’s pile. For example, if a ballot paper showed a number 1 vote for Candidate D and a number 2 vote for Candidate B, it would be moved to Candidate B’s pile.

•               If the ballot paper does not show a number 2 vote, it is no longer used.

Round three

•               Again, the candidate with fewest votes is removed from the contest – this time it’s Candidate C.

•               Each ballot paper on Candidate C’s pile is looked at again to see if any of the remaining candidates are ranked.

•               If so, the ballot paper is moved to the pile of the candidate ranked highest on that ballot paper.

•               If none of the remaining candidates are ranked the ballot paper is no longer used.

•               If more candidates are involved, this process can be repeated until one candidate has more than half the remaining votes.

•                    Because voters don’t have to rank all of the candidates, an election can be won under the ‘alternative vote’ system with less than half the total votes cast.”

At a time when we are struggling with voter apathy in this country, I really think it is inappropriate to make the way we vote more complex. Surely it is simple and more democratic to stick with the current voting system of one person one vote!!

campaign update!!

Well we are now into April and only one month from now will be polling day, so as you can imagine the election campaign is now in full swing!!

The nominations for council are now closed so i can now reveal for mendip district council that there are six of us standing for two seats in my ward of st Thomas, wells. That includes myself and my other Conservative co-candidate Simon Davies who currently serving his country on deployment to help out with the libyan difficulties at the NATO command centre in North london. This is only a tempory deployement so will be back soon to represent his people of Wells which he has done so brillantly in the past.

We also have the two current lib dem councillors restanding and a labour and green party candidates confirmed!!

During my sessions of knocking on doors, which I have had many excellent responses from residents have raised a number of good local issues including local supermarket proposed developments, car parking in the city. and local building work. On top of that I have also hap people interested in the national voting referendum happening on the same day as local elections.

I very much hope I will have a chance to represent these great locals on the city and district council soon!!

Wells a great place to visit!!

Perhaps with the typical British weather many of us brits choose to travel abroad for our annual holiday; because of this how much do we really value what is on our doorstep to visit here in Britain. For those of us that our lucky enough to live in the great city of wells where we have a lot here just in walking distance.

Wells is also a great place to visit for those people on the British tourism trail as being the smallest city in England we have an amazing cathedral and bishop’s palace to explore. Not only is that but wells also host to the oldest complete inhabited street in Europe dating back to the eleventh century.

So wells have an amazing history and a lot of this is documented/exhibited in our local museum just of the cathedral green. And the museum today was the venue for a visit from John Penrose MP and minister for tourism, who is very interested in improving the promotion of England as a great place to visit.

Myself pictured with John Penrose MP (minister for tourism), Harvey siggs (Leader of mendip district council) and other council candidates outside Wells musuem. 

As a person of a younger generation myself I can greatly see the huge benefits of excellent modern communication technique’s (the web) in marketing our City. For most people these days the web is the number one destination for finding a wide range of information. It is why should I be elected to serve as a district and city councillor in the city I will support and encourage any scheme that improves our city’s online presence.

After all Tourism is a known factor in boosting the local economy providing jobs for the locals. Tourism can already be seen as doing this in the city by the vast amount of coffee shops in the city that are always busy even more so in the summer!!

Strong leaders for challenging times

As I am sure you are all aware we are going through some challenging times at the moment, and will unfortunately continue to do so whilst the country gets itself out of the mess it’s in. This is all thanks to the mess that the last labour government caused with our economy. We will continue to face some tricky decisions not just the country as a whole but us here in Mendip district council!!

Conservative run Mendip district council have made the right decisions in these challenging times and this can be seen by the fact that the council has no debt despite the county council being in debt to the tune of 360 million thanks to the last lib dem administration.

Should the residents of st Thomas ward in Wells elect me as their district councillor on 5th of May and return the Conservatives control of the district council I will continue to support the right decisions being made. This includes providing the locals with value for money and doing more for less with the services we provide!!

Something about me for the residents of Wells

I have been a resident of Wells that has lived here virtually my whole life I deeply care for the city and making it a better place for those of us that our lucky to live here, and to our visitors
.
As a individual that works with adults with learning disabilities I greatly value the importance of making our community as accessible as possible.

Therefore should you decide to elect me I will do my up most best to keep you informed in the decisions being made and giving you the opportunity to contribute to the process. Of coarse as a local I deeply care about the enviroment we all live in.

Wells - Traffic light mad!!

From my local Conservative party resident survey questionnaires I gather many local residents share the same pet hate as my self and that is the stupid amount of traffic lights one must encounter when travelling on the Wells releif road.

On a half mile approx stretch of the road there is five sets of lights, if your luck is anything like mime when it comes to traffic lights then you proberly get stuck at every single one. I strongly feel that we could do with introducing more roundabouts on the route particually at the new street junction.

It is why should I be elected as the district and city councillor for the st Thomas ward I will campaign for a roundabout at the New street junction.

Candidate Announcement!!!

I would like to officially announce here on my blog that I have taken the decision to stand as a city and district council candidate for the Conservative party in the St Thomas ward of Wells. During my campaign I am very much looking foward to gettting out and about communicating with the residents of the St Thomas ward finding out the aspirations and hopes for the future.

Should you the voters decide to elect me to represent you in this great city of Wells, these are my aims for my time in office.

1.To support the job creation for residents of the city especially young adults.
2. Supporting the provision of affordable housing for the residents across the city.
3.Engaging with the young people of the city supporting opportunities for participation in the local community and supporting a continuation of a youth service based here in Wells.
4.Work in close partnership with the local police and supporting CCTV across the city.
5. To promote a sustainable enviroment across the city.

Most importantly I wish to be accessible as much as possible to the great fellow residents of the St Thomas ward so that the voices of the locals can be heard in the decisions that the council makes.

If you wish to get in touch with me please don't hesitate to send me an email and I will respond as soon as I can.

Email me at andydenison86@gmail.com

You can also follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/andydenison

Many Thanks.

Local candidates can be affiliated but non-political at city/district council level

I have noticed from some of the letters in the local papers recently that some of the local residents have quite rightly raised the issue of local councils becoming too political at the city and Mendip levels of the council. However I do not feel that a councillor needs to be necessarily independent of political affiliation to be an effective member of the local council.

Anybody that wishes to stand at local council level then generally all has a genuine desire to make the local area a better place for all regardless of political affiliation or none at all. It is the beliefs/values that vary which in a democracy I’m sure you will agree is very important, it is why I have my own blog as I am affiliated to the Conservative party.

I do hope that there will be a good variety of local candidates standing this May, from different political affiliations or none at all to give you the local residents a clear choice of which local person you feel best represents you on the local council.

Why I will be voting NO in the alternative vote referendum

As you will already be aware on May the 5^th this year as well as going to the poll for the local elections there will also be a referendum over our voting system. The liberal democrats demanded this last year as part of their deal to power share with either the Conservatives or Labour. Do we vote to change to the alternative votes system or do we vote to keep the current system in place. Well I for one will vote to keep the current system (First past the post) in place where I think it rightly deserves to be and here is why!!
The current system is simple and fair the candidate with the most votes is elected and then what ever party wins the most seats gains/hold power - simple and easy to understand!!!
How can it be fair under the new proposed system that it is possible for the candidate who comes second or even third to win the election.
IF you’re a voter of a mainstream party (Conservative, Labour, Lib dems) then your vote will count for less under the new system than someone that votes for a minority party, this is because those parties are highly likely to be eliminated first meaning their voters other preferences will be counted more times before it reaches the mainstream parties if it does at all!!
This new system is likely to increase the likely hood of more hung parliament. Do we really want more back room deals (like the last general election) where the only vote that really matters on who gets the keys to 10 downing street are the leaders of the third party (lib dems), when it should be us and us only that decides that.
Only three countries in the world uses the alternative vote system, one of those countries is Australia and we all no the shambles of their last election where it took weeks to decide which party was going to gain power. And now 6 in 10 Australians would like to see the voting system placed in the bins so to speak.
This new system will cost us the taxpayer around 250 million pounds to change to this new system, how can it be right to foot the bill whilst we are facing these huge economic challenges when we need every penny to go towards things like the NHS, Policing, Education and Social care etc.Of coarse these are my main reasons for voting NO but of coarse there are others as well, for more info you can go and take a look at this website as I found it very interesting http://www.no2av.org/

You can also currently add your vote on the online poll right now on this website http://www.wellsconservatives.org.uk/

So i do hope you will consider joining me in voting NO on may the 5th

Grit bins for Wells!!

It was great to see that last Autumn new grit bins were placed at in the key areas around the city in time for last decembers heavy snowfall. We all know how difficult it is to get around certain parts of the city (particually the hawkers lane area of Wells.) due to heavy snowfall on our roads and also on our paths making all our daily aspects of our life challenging whether thats getting to work or getting our food shopping plus a whole range of other daily activities.

This is why I was proud to consult with local councillor John North (please see photo) last year about the importance of having grit bins available to the locals in key sites around wells away from the main roads, particually in areas of steep inclines.

Great to see the City council listening to the concern of us the local residents and taking the appropriate action, well done!!!