Ellen Fleetwood

Back ground - Father was born into a farming family in Wiltshire and my Aunty still farms near Lyndhurst in Hampshire. I grew up in London, my father being a jeweller and my mother working for Rolls Royce, both sharing the home maker role.

Having moved to Clifton Campville with our three children from Windsor in 2000 due to my husband’s job, we started to integrate ourselves into village life mainly through school activities.

As the children grew, all attended primary school in Elford, the youngest starting in Pre-school where I became treasurer for a couple of years. I also became involved in the running of the Youth club through the elder two and have watched it move and grow over the past few years to the busy and active place it is today.

During the past 5 years I have regularly helped with the activities that surround school life, Arranging Christmas Fairs, Barbeques, Making the MANY Costumes for the Christmas plays as the years have gone by. Helping the children enjoy the annual craft day is wonderful, as along with making celebration cakes for all occasions, I enjoy painting and crafts of all descriptions.

Having worked at the Belfry for 4 years I decided it was time to take a rest and concentrate on family, children and progressing my cake portfolio.

I feel that I can now expand on helping my local community by running in the local elections. I don’t do apathy and am of the firm opinion that if your not prepared to stand up and help change things for the better then you cannot moan when things don’t work out to your liking.

I cannot bear the thought of our beautiful villages being over run with the mass building that we are currently threatened with by Labour. Yes we need affordable housing for local families but we need the infrastructure to support that slow growth.

I am appalled by the prospect of Labour spending £20m on an Arts Centre in Stafford Town which would cost each and every household in the County £70, even though I love art and crafts of all types and in the right place and time it is a joy we should ALL be able to share.

To my way of thinking the proposed £20m could fund a massive amount of care home places for the elderly and the vulnerable members of our society, and not just for this year but also for years to come.

I am proud that Conservatives have made Lichfield District one of the top recycling councils in the country.. What better way to care for the areas our children are going to inherit and do our small bit to save the planet that desperately needs our help.

The young people in our towns and villages are our future, we need to stop making them feel that they are a nuisance, that we are doing them a favour and putting up with them. We have to show them that we really do care about them, what they do, both now and in the future.

If I can help in small way’s that grow over the years that make our communities a nicer place to live and work then I will have achieved what I set out to do.