Luke John Frost

Tees Valley Metro Mayor! Other than a majority of us not recognising "Tees Valley" not many people where consulted about the prospect of having a "Mayor" yet here we are, 3 weeks before going to polls and people are asking who should they vote for, if their going to vote. It is clear that the public have no great knowledge of what their voting for and many are not going to bother to vote at all. I stood outside Stockton Town House on the High Street to demonstrate my anger that our council leaders signed the Devolution Contract a week before going to the vote. Labour and Conservative working in perfect harmony. Elected members had no choice but to go along with this plan to create another level of democracy and one that is going to be expensive and as history has proven, not much gets done when local authorities "work" together. Then there is the money available in Devolution, £450m - Sounds great but this is by far the lowest amount to any...

A lot of hard work has been going on behind the scenes at Partnership HQ and the biggest difference is that the Youth Zone has been re-branded and is now a stand alone project aiming to get young people active throughout the School holidays across the Tees Region. The First event under the new brand is Youth Week 2017, which is the biggest to date and will see 192 young people take to the Tees to experience something new. This is the first time that an event this size has happened locally and I am proud to say that it is the Thornaby area benefiting from it. I plan to create events across the Stockton and Billingham area in the first 12 months and then look at incorporating Middlesbrough in early 2018. It can only get bigger and better. But now is when the hard work begins and I look forward to the challenge. After the Easter break I will be looking at creating events for those in Billingham before making a big push for a Stockton Borough wide event in the summer...

I attended a hustings event last night in Middlesbrough to listen to the 4 candidates who are standing to be elected as the Tees Mayor and whilst attendance was low it was a good opportunity to get in some pressure questions. I think it is well known that my politics isn't mainstream and for the most part I have the opinion that no matter which national party is in power, Teesside will continue to be treat with disdain. I also believe that national policies don't fully work in areas such as ours. For a majority of people living on Teesside the issues are not about better transport, better homes and better environments, although there important. The main issues are about surviving day to day to make ends meet. We live in a society led by big parties that have forgotten what it is like to beg and borrow. We live in a rich mans world, teetering on the cliff of hardship as many families struggle to feed and cloth themselves. But let me be clear, those struggling ...