Meet your new Councillors

We asked your three new South Leeds Councillors to introduce themselves:

Cllr Annie Maloney – Beeston & Holbeck ward

I stood for election because growing up I saw the constant injustice so many face.

My Mum struggled as a single parent working full time and as I’ve got older, I’ve struggled to get by, felt the cost of living increasing, dealt with bad bosses and struggled to get on the housing ladder. I thought we all deserve better and want to make a change so got involved in politics in the hope to enact change.

I want to ensure every single resident behind every single door feels heard and represented by their local councillors. Working with community groups, local businesses, service providers and residents to help implement the change that they want to see, empowering our community and in doing so effecting change and improving the quality of life for all residents.

My priority will always be representing the needs of the community. However, when it comes to specific policy, it is housing. I’m a proud member of Acorn and look forward to working with them across the city as well as ensuring housing needs are met in our area.

I live with my partner Àlex, who moved to Leeds from Barcelona 7 years ago. He’s now a fully fledged Yorkshire lad and we’re both huge Leeds United fans.

Cllr Ed Carlisle – Hunslet & Riverside ward

I’ve been active in the south Leeds communities for a long time (20 years), I love this area – and a few years ago I just became pretty disillusioned with the poor state of local politics in our ward especially (previously called City and Hunslet, now called Hunslet and Riverside).

I felt (and still feel) that we need active local people to represent us within the City Council, people who are really in and for our communities. It’s been a wonderful and amazing journey these past years (I’ve been standing in the elections locally since 2015), and I’m so grateful to the wonderful range of people who’ve supported us – we got there in the end!

Above all else, I’m committed to listening to local people, and working with them, to create change for our area. Our communities have been pushed down for too long, but there are so many great local people – with wisdom, skills, ideas, and resources to share. I’ve always been committed to cooperating with others to effect change, but this new role creates an opportunity to go up a gear, and really help develop community cooperation and power.

Also, I know and respect (and in some cases, even like!) a load of councillors from other political parties, and am keen to work across our differences with my ward colleagues, for the good of our community and our city: watch this space.

There’s certainly a lot to do! I think the private hire taxi drivers have been treated very poorly by the Council over the past months and years, and am keen to ensure they get a fair resolution to the current conflicts around their licensing. I’m keen to work with the environmental and waste departments (and also a wide range of community partners) on more innovative approaches to waste, and to ensure every resident in south Leeds has a fortnightly green bin collection ASAP.

I’d love to see Leeds pioneering new methods for tackling drug abuse: the current system isn’t working, but countries like Portugal are demonstrating that there’s another better way. I think we need to push for a more localised economy, with priority given to locally-run businesses (for more, check out what CLES are doing in Preston).

And I’m keen to see the Council across all its departments get better at genuine community dialogue, learning, and collaboration – no longer doing things to communities, but with them.

I live in Beeston Hill, with my wife Tania, and two kids (aged 7 and 3). I’m really grateful that they love and support this journey into local community politics that I’m on – most of the time!

Read Cllr Wayne Dixon’s (Middleton Park) comments here.