A councillor from the village of Peasedown St John near Bath has announced his intention to stand for parliament in the next General Election.
Peasedown resident Gavin Heathcote
Gavin Heathcote, who represents Peasedown as an independent councillor, has been involved in some of his local community’s biggest projects in the past few years.
As well as being a councillor, he runs a local charity, organises the Peasedown Party in the Park festival and has been instrumental in a campaign to plant over 500 trees in public and open spaces.
Gavin will stand as an independent candidate in the new Frome and East Somerset Parliamentary Constituency.
He said: “Party politics has let us down for far too long! Whilst politicians in the major parties squabble over the next newspaper headline, it’s the hardworking people in towns and villages up and down the country that lose out.
“Whilst those of us who work hard and pay our taxes struggle to make ends meet, we have a political establishment that has no idea how those of us in the ‘real world’ struggle to put food on the table and ensure the household bills are paid.”
Gavin has said he wants to do more to support the middle earners, those that are ‘just about managing’.
He wants to see reforms to the tax system that support those ‘in the middle’ and much more help for small businesses who are being priced out by large companies.
He added: “I’ll be announcing my five key policy areas later in the spring, all of which will focus on the common everyday issues that we all face.”
With the date of the next UK General Election currently unknown, what is certain is that it will be fought under radically new parliamentary boundaries.
Locally, the towns and villages of Midsomer Norton, Radstock, Westfield and Peasedown St John will join with Frome, Coleford and Holcombe to form the new ‘Frome and East Somerset’ Constituency.
Running Gavin’s election campaign for parliament will be B&NES council’s former Deputy Leader Nathan Hartley.
Nathan said: “We’ve developed a winning formula for winning elections in Peasedown that’s worked everytime for the last 20 years.
“The challenge though is to see if we can replicate the success of Peasedown’s Independent movement across a much wider geographical area.
“We certainly have a mountain to climb! My job will be to ensure that every single one of the 70,000 voters in this brand-new constituency have heard of Gavin, know what he stands for and are motivated to vote for him.
“As an Independent, he’ll be competing with the larger parties who have major financial backing.
“We’ll be relying on the support of ordinary, everyday people who feel persuaded to vote for something different.”
