The Issue at HandCouncil elections have often been the starting point for many successful political careers. Knowing the country you're responsible to starts with knowing those immediately around you. With this is mind, we tried to decode the relation between students and local politics, which is often fraught with apathy from both sides and a lack of representation for a large population who's voice should matter.
Local Journalists and their Hustings Event |
Students who volunteer as reporters for media outlet Jesmond Local organised a hustings event for those in North and South Jesmond Wards. Locals packed Jesmond’s 1901 Caffe Bistro on Tuesday May 3rd ahead of the council elections to be held on Thursday. All standing parties were represented, apart from UKIP who declined.
The hustings, the only one by local media, was an opportunity for potential councillors to interact with those in attendance and a broader audience as the event was live-blogged at jesmondlocal.com and also filmed and uploaded later in the week.
Student and Green Party candidate for South Jesmond Matthew Busby, 19 said of the annual event, “It is a fantastic event that helps to engage people into local politics and meet the candidates they can vote for as well as question their policies directly”. He continued, “it also promotes local independent business and to local politics and get them to explore the local businesses in Jesmond”.
The candidates were quizzed on topics ranging from protecting independent traders, the Acorn Road development and the student/non-student demographic of Jesmond, as well as private landlords. All candidates appeared hopeful of greater student and family cohesion. Despite this few students were actually in attendance.
The event packed the St George’s Terrace café as Imogen Scott- Chambers noted “we didn’t have enough chairs, people were standing up and people were coming late but just wanted to be involved”. The Jesmond Local reporter also acknowledged the difficulty of engaging with students, “With Jesmond they (students) only live for a year two years so they don’t really feel passionately about it”.
Similarly Busby said “it would have been nice to see more of the South Jesmond ward candidates and its shame more students weren’t in attendance”. However he remained hopeful of the event’s achievements as a “great way to encourage more people to become more involved in local politics”.
The event is annually organised by Jesmond Local as part of their efforts in ‘connecting local people’, while endeavouring to give students hands on journalism experience. Each year the ‘hyperlocal news service’ intakes a new cohort of students as volunteer reporters to train in various aspects of news gathering and reporting. They are trained by working journalists including Editor Ian Wylie and maintain a non for profit status.
Scott- Chambers believes the experience has connected her to the area. “If I hadn’t been part of Jesmond Local I wouldn’t know Jesmond as well as I do. Now a lot of us know local people in the community. So if I’m just walking around its like ‘Ah hi!’ and it’s the President of the JRA (Jesmond Resident’s association)”.
-Scott Trotter
The hustings, the only one by local media, was an opportunity for potential councillors to interact with those in attendance and a broader audience as the event was live-blogged at jesmondlocal.com and also filmed and uploaded later in the week.
Student and Green Party candidate for South Jesmond Matthew Busby, 19 said of the annual event, “It is a fantastic event that helps to engage people into local politics and meet the candidates they can vote for as well as question their policies directly”. He continued, “it also promotes local independent business and to local politics and get them to explore the local businesses in Jesmond”.
The candidates were quizzed on topics ranging from protecting independent traders, the Acorn Road development and the student/non-student demographic of Jesmond, as well as private landlords. All candidates appeared hopeful of greater student and family cohesion. Despite this few students were actually in attendance.
The event packed the St George’s Terrace café as Imogen Scott- Chambers noted “we didn’t have enough chairs, people were standing up and people were coming late but just wanted to be involved”. The Jesmond Local reporter also acknowledged the difficulty of engaging with students, “With Jesmond they (students) only live for a year two years so they don’t really feel passionately about it”.
Similarly Busby said “it would have been nice to see more of the South Jesmond ward candidates and its shame more students weren’t in attendance”. However he remained hopeful of the event’s achievements as a “great way to encourage more people to become more involved in local politics”.
The event is annually organised by Jesmond Local as part of their efforts in ‘connecting local people’, while endeavouring to give students hands on journalism experience. Each year the ‘hyperlocal news service’ intakes a new cohort of students as volunteer reporters to train in various aspects of news gathering and reporting. They are trained by working journalists including Editor Ian Wylie and maintain a non for profit status.
Scott- Chambers believes the experience has connected her to the area. “If I hadn’t been part of Jesmond Local I wouldn’t know Jesmond as well as I do. Now a lot of us know local people in the community. So if I’m just walking around its like ‘Ah hi!’ and it’s the President of the JRA (Jesmond Resident’s association)”.
-Scott Trotter
Student Surveys
With the Local Council’s taking place of the 5th of May, we as a group decided to gauge the level of involvement, given that the local elections were taking place in the middle of a very unstable national political atmosphere.
We had conducted vox pops, and distributed questionnaires online, to try to understand why people vote in council elections.
The results of the survey were intriguing to say the least, as the data we gathered showed that though a large population were aware about the local council elections, they had only a vague idea as to the political capacity in which council’s operate.
A sizeable 70% of the people whom we questioned did not vote in the local election for the post of councillor and police commissioner. Amongst the reasons people didn’t give for voting, was the lack of information regarding polling stations, registering from their home address, not realising that local elections would be before the referendum.
“I don't feel they have as much impact on my life as other elections. I have no idea who my local councillors/ police crime commissioners are or what they actually do. I would rather leave it to other voters who have an interest in this and an understanding of it to vote.” said one of the people who answered the survey
What was most intriguing however, was to discover that 89% of the people we asked planned to register themselves, and exercise their vote in the EU Referendum on June 23rd.
A large section of the people who answered this question said that they felt that the result would be of profound consequence to their future as well as those of their families, and as a result they would like to influence them as much as they can.
The amount of media coverage may have proven to be the difference between both votes, as a large portion of the youth feel more informed to make a decision concerning the European Union than they do with their own council.
In a way, it shows where student priorities lie, in relation to politics in general. Political involvement seems to largely be selective with a lot of students just generally not caring too much about their local wards.
We had conducted vox pops, and distributed questionnaires online, to try to understand why people vote in council elections.
The results of the survey were intriguing to say the least, as the data we gathered showed that though a large population were aware about the local council elections, they had only a vague idea as to the political capacity in which council’s operate.
A sizeable 70% of the people whom we questioned did not vote in the local election for the post of councillor and police commissioner. Amongst the reasons people didn’t give for voting, was the lack of information regarding polling stations, registering from their home address, not realising that local elections would be before the referendum.
“I don't feel they have as much impact on my life as other elections. I have no idea who my local councillors/ police crime commissioners are or what they actually do. I would rather leave it to other voters who have an interest in this and an understanding of it to vote.” said one of the people who answered the survey
What was most intriguing however, was to discover that 89% of the people we asked planned to register themselves, and exercise their vote in the EU Referendum on June 23rd.
A large section of the people who answered this question said that they felt that the result would be of profound consequence to their future as well as those of their families, and as a result they would like to influence them as much as they can.
The amount of media coverage may have proven to be the difference between both votes, as a large portion of the youth feel more informed to make a decision concerning the European Union than they do with their own council.
In a way, it shows where student priorities lie, in relation to politics in general. Political involvement seems to largely be selective with a lot of students just generally not caring too much about their local wards.