DEPUTY Geoff Southern and youth worker Trevor Pitman will stand in the Senatorial election under the Jersey Democratic Alliance banner.
The pair – 58 and 48 respectively – will stand as JDA members after the party was formally registered in the Royal Court on Friday. They are the 14th and 15th candidates to declare for the elections which will see six Senatorial seats decided. At least two more are expected to announce at tomorrow’s nomination meeting.
Deputy Southern, who is the Economic Scrutiny panel chairman, has represented the St Helier No 2 district for the last seven years, and has twice run unsuccessfully for Senator. Mr Pitman, who is the chairman of the JDA, has not stood for office before. He runs Jersey’s biggest youth centre, and is the husband of St Helier No 2 Deputy Shona Pitman.
The JDA say that they will publish their manifesto through the www.jdajersey.co.uk website soon. They are the only party with members in the States. Mr Pitman (pictured above) said that creating vocational education opportunities and affordable first-time buyer homes would be at the top of his agenda. He said: ‘Our children are the Island’s future – and as research shows, small communities like ours simply cannot afford to lose them through lack of adequate housing and career availability.
‘I believe we also need to get some common sense back into government. Too many of our politicians, particularly the ministers, have lost touch completely with their electorate. They have little or no idea of what it means to lower and middle income families to cope with spiralling costs in food, energy, rents and house prices.’
Deputy Southern (pictured below) has lodged more than 70 propositions in his seven years in the House, and is the States’ most prolific tabler of written and oral questions. Over the last two and a half years, Deputy Southern’s Scrutiny panel has reviewed the incorporation of Jersey Post, the fulfilment industry and the role of Jersey Finance.
He has also sat on sub-panels looking at immigration and the Income Support benefit package.
The two candidates announcing today join sitting Senators Mike Vibert and Paul Routier, Deputies Peter Troy and Sarah Ferguson, Time 4 Change members Montfort Tadier and Nick Le Cornu, former Magistrate Ian Le Marquand, Fairtrade campaigner Daniel Wimberley, therapist Cliff Le Clercq, 21-year-old Jeremy Maçon, business analyst Adrian Walsh and environmental campaigners Nick Palmer and Chris Perkins in the running for Senator.
The nomination meeting for Senatorial candidates will be held at the Town Hall tomorrow and the election will be held on Wednesday 15 October.
