Paul chairs the Hayling Ferry Trust, working with local residents of all political persuasions (and none at all) to promote and support the Hayling Ferry.

As the ferry gets up and running post-pandemic, real opportunities exist to grow the service for the betterment of all Islanders, and our environment.

Paul is delighted that Lib Dem Councillor Darren Sanders, of Portsmouth City Council, has recently been appointed as Chair of Langstone Harbour Board.

People all across the island are keen to cycle more, both for the benefit of the environment and their own health. But when asking people what stops them from getting out and about on their bike, one problem frequently comes up: safety on the road.

Wilf and Paul are extremely keen, if elected, to direct more funds towards safe cycle routes. Wilf is especially keen to take the good work he has been doing as a local cycle champion and put that to good use as a councillor.

Pollution around our island is a growing concern for residents, and your Lib Dem candidates entirely share that concern.

Recent murmurings from local Conservatives have been little more than attempts to appease growing resentment and do little to meet the requirements of the problem.

Hayling Island Lib Dem campaigners Paul Gray and Wilf Forrow, mirroring Lib Dem policy all across the country, want to make fundamental changes to the sometimes-crippling costs incurred in the form of business rates.

Longer-term, Paul and Wilf want to see the responsibility for business rates shifted away from business owners but, also recognising the need for immediate help, they are advocating a 2021 business rates holiday for local businesses struggling to recover from the pandemic.

For far too long our wonderful natural resource that is our coastline has been treated by Conservatives, not as an asset but a problem.

All that MUST change.

In Lib Dem run councils across Britain, local amenities are being used to help communities to thrive, bringing in much-needed tourist revenue through both the public and private sectors and even helping to reduce council tax.

We need to change the mentality which sees problems instead of opportunities. We need to begin to utilise what we have all around us. The existing culture, which is little more than one of accepting and managing decline, has to be reversed.

Our beaches and our Billy Trail are coastal gems and it is high time we began to recognise them as such. A long-term solution to the annual migration of shingle, which sees it shift with the tide from the east of the island to the west, has to be found. The current Conservative formula will never see our beaches protected properly, reinforcing the wider Conservative mentality of managing decline.

When the War Memorial Hospital was demolished 10 years ago Havant was promised a new Community Hospital which would deliver health care facilities plus a nursing home and extra care flats on the site previously occupied by Oak Park School.

Three times a developer has been found and plans have fallen through. Today we have a clinic but no nursing home and no extra care flats. When it is built the housing will ease pressure on Havant’s housing list and on QA hospital. Despite all the promises, construction has still not started.

The Conservatives are not delivering. We need this right now to meet the care needs of the older and more vulnerable members of our community.

These headlines from The News over the past few years tell a sad tale:

Jane Briggs, local Liberal Democrat candidate for Emsworth & St Faiths said:

“Over 10 years ago the council, promised local residents a health and community campus with care flats for local residents and a nursing home on Oak Park. Having failed to deliver older residents are forced to move out of the area to find the support they need.”

"Over and over again these promises have come to nothing. Instead, we have an empty neglected site with the Victoria Cottage Hospital in Emsworth and the Havant War Memorial Hospital closed but not yet replaced. Our older residents deserve better and I am determined the council fulfils its promises to them."

With local elections coming up on May 6th. A number of our Liberal Democrat candidates standing for both county and borough council elections are joining in and signing the ABCD climate action pledge. 

They are agreeing, if elected, to press their council to:  

• Aim higher
• Build partnerships
• Communicate
• Divest from fossil fuels.

Reacting to new research from the Health Foundation that found 1.5 million potential years of life have been lost to COVID-19 in the UK, with each life being cut short by 10 years on average, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care, Munira Wilson MP said:

Liberal Democrats marked the conclusion of their 2021 Spring Conference by calling on the Government to make a fully-funded commitment to resettle 10,000 refugees a year, in addition to 10,000 child refugees over the next ten years.

Liberal Democrats have called on the Home Secretary to drop proposals to restrict the right to protest during an emergency motion passed at the party's Spring Conference.