Ros Scott's Election Diary Day 1: Sheffield, Ashfield & Leeds (Charnwood Liberal Democrats)

Charnwood Liberal Democrats <brianedward.smith@lineone.net>

Ros Scott's Election Diary Day 1: Sheffield, Ashfield & Leeds

April 2, 2010 12:53 AM
Originally published by UK Liberal Democrats

I'm fed up with waiting for Gordon Brown to call the election, so I've started without him.

Maundy Thursday saw me up bright and early to catch the 8.35 train to Sheffield for my first official visit of the campaign. I met up with Paul Scriven, leader of the City Council, and our Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) in Sheffield Central. Paul is both a highly effective council leader and a first rate campaigner, and I'm confident that he will join Nick Clegg as Sheffield's second Liberal Democrat MP.

As well as a brief visit to the campaign HQ, we toured the Kroto Innovation Centre at the University of Sheffield, named after Sir Harry Kroto, a Nobel Prize-winning alumnus. We were obliged to dress up for our look around the 'clean room' where gallium-based crystals were being grown for nano-technology research in universities across the country. A conversation with a representative of Siemens revealed that their main European centre for research into wind turbines is based on the campus. Our commitment to developing former shipbuilding facilities as sites for wind turbine production would draw on this expertise.

Off then to Ashfield in Nottinghamshire to meet our young PPC and councillor, Jason Zadrozny, and his team, who have been winning council seats from Labour steadily over the last four years. It's an area where Labour neglect is apparent and they have been badly let down by their outgoing MP, Geoff Hoon. A cup of tea with activists in the HQ, followed by a whistlestop tour of a vast proposed housing development on a greenfield site. Jason tells me that there are many empty properties in the area which could be quite easily be brought back into use and he's delighted that we have made a manifesto commitment to investment in existing housing stock.

I spent the evening canvassing with a team in Leeds North West, where Greg Mulholland is defending the seat he snatched from Labour in 2001. Greg has a reputation as an effective and hardworking MP, so we have a good story to tell on the doorstep.

Ros Scott

Liberal Democrats Party President