I am originally from Nottingham, but moved at 14 due to domestic violence, and we spent several years in homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters and temporary accommodation, so I have firsthand experience of the hardships families face.

26 years ago, I became ill, with my health deteriorating over time, and in 2009 I was diagnosed with a progressive neurological disorder called Episodic Ataxia, and I am now a wheelchair user due to this, but I try not to let this limit me.

My personal experiences have shaped my ethics and beliefs, and I truly believe in Social Equality and Social Justice, and try to base all my decisions on those principles.

As a current Burnley Councillor for the Trinity ward, a large amount of the casework I handle is for County Council issues such as parking, public transport and potholes, so it makes sense to combine both roles to offer residents the best service possible.

I am well known for my work on tackling flytipping, having reported thousands of instances over the past 4 years, having the highest number of reports of anyone in Burnley – at the last time of checking, I made 25% of all the reports in Burnley, but it doesn’t stop there – I have been working on allowing residents to grow food on unused council land, helped people reverse thousands of pounds of incorrect Council Tax bills, helped to resolve Antisocial Behaviour problems and much more.

I have also worked on trying to force Lancashire Constabulary to enforce our 20mph speed limits, which they currently refuse to do, putting residents – particularly children and the elderly – at risk, with drivers doing over 70mph in some instancess as they know the police will sit on their hands and ignore it, and helped to improve the Disabled Away fan experience at Burnley Football Club.

My work on making the town accessible for everyone has helped to shape Pioneer Place, making it friendlier and accessible to everyone, I have had barriers that stop wheelchairs, mobility scooters and large prams or pushchairs from using some pathways removed or altered and I am fighting to have dropped kerbs across the town.

I believe that everyone should get the same chances in life, and be treated the same and have spent most of my adult life volunteering or campaigning to make residents lives better.

As a County Councillor, I would continue this work, but also expand it into Education, Transport, Adult Social Care and more, with the same passion and dedication that I have put into being a Burnley Councillor.

There are many challenges ahead for Lancashire, with devolution looming over us, the increasing weather related issues caused by climate change, the transition to Electric Vehicles etc, and we must make sure that nobody is left behind.

If you would like to help me get elected, then please email me on mhurt.green@gmail.com or if you can afford to contribute to my campaign costs, then please check out my Crowdfunder.

The post Burnley Greens Choose Martyn Hurt to fight the burnley central west seat on Lancashire County Council on may 1st appeared first on Burnley Green Party.

Unlike many who are constantly calling for more fines, I have lived in and amongst poverty for almost 40 years. I have been one of the children surviving on a subsistence diet and have experienced homelessness and domestic violence shelters. I have also been involved with volunteering in those communities, on and off, since I was 16, so I have built up an understanding of some of the effects and causes of these issues – however I am no expert, and these are my own views, created from these experiences.

Over the past few years, I have reported thousands of instances of flytipping, mainly within the Trinity Ward, where I have been responsible for almost 25% of ALL flytipping reports in Burnley, and over the past 3 years (or even the 26 or so years I have lived here), I have seen very little change until fairly recently, where the amount of general waste (usually in black bags or carrier bags) that I am seeing has decreased, but the level of bulky waste hasn’t – bulky waste is made up of items like fridges, sofas, mattresses and other large household items.

Whereas general waste can often be tracked down to an individual, so that targeted help, education or enforcement can take place, bulky items are usually impossible to trace back to the perpetrator, so we see a constant cycle of bulky items being thrown out, the council clearing them away, then more items being dumped in their place – it is an unsustainable situation that can be a very deep money pit.

Deprivation is a big driver of the bulky waste flytipping problem within Burnley, but that is just one of the many drivers behind the problem.

People buy cheap furniture and white goods off Facebook because that’s all they can afford at the time – if you’ve only got £20 for a fridge freezer, you aren’t going to be buying anything decent – so it doesn’t last long, so they buy more cheap items from Facebook that cost £20 because that’s all they can afford, but then they can’t afford the fees for the collection of the old ones, so they get dumped – and the cycle continues.

Certainly in Trinity we also have a fairly big transient population due, in part, to the number of HMOs – people move in, work for a period and often move on within 6-12 months and either they, or the landlords, just dump everything on the back streets.They are also often hard to reach due to trust issues, no ties to the area, don’t speak or read English very well, have a low literacy level, or just don’t understand the rules, as in many places it is the norm to leave items and waste out to be collected.

You can only tackle those groups of residents with help and education, lifting people out of poverty and to an income level where they can afford decent appliances and furniture, helping to restore pride in where they live and themselves.

We can start that process by ending the 2 child benefit cap for Universal Credit, the bedroom tax and introducing a Universal Basic Income.

Enforcement is not the way forward with these residents.

Then there are the people that just don’t care, and never will.

Whatever you do or say, they will just throw everything onto the back street, or empty someone’s back yard for £30 and then take it round the corner and fill the yard of an empty house, dump it on a back street or a country layby – these are the ones that need the enforcement actions, because help and education just won’t change their attitudes – but that doesn’t mean you don’t try first.

It is all about ending the never ending cycle, not just constantly removing the rubbish so people just think it’s fine to keep throwing more out – that isn’t sustainable, and fines shouldn’t be the first thing to try.

The drivers behind flytipping are numerous and complex, and there is no single answer or fix to the problem. No administration in the Borough has managed to successfully tackle the problem, and no amount of political posturing will solve it either – the things you didn’t try when you were in power because you knew they wouldn’t work aren’t suddenly going to work now, and to say otherwise is an insult to the people of Burnley and Padiham.

The post Drivers behind Bulky Waste Flytipping appeared first on Burnley Green Party.

Hollowed out by a decade of politically motivated austerity, our social security system was already failing far too many. For people who didn’t have enough to live on before the pandemic, their situation is now even worse. Too many people are excluded from the schemes the Government introduced and Universal Credit falls far short of a living wage. The current social security system is too cumbersome and inefficient for what is a fast moving and unpredictable reality. A guaranteed minimum income would provide desperately needed security, especially at this moment of crisis.

The most robust study of UBI to date concluded that it boosts recipients’ mental and financial well-being, as well as modestly improving employment. There are other benefits, too: people have more time to care for family or neighbours, much like the vital work of mutual aid groups across the country in response to Covid-19. 

The full economic consequences of coronavirus are still ahead of us, so now is the time to put in place the mechanism that can deliver the security we all need. A minimum guaranteed income should go hand in hand with a genuine living wage – a social security system that lifts us all up, together.

The post GREEN STEPS TO BETTER: STEP 5: A BASIC INCOME FOR ALL appeared first on Burnley Green Party.