New non-political Hartlepool movement announces first set of local election candidates

Hartlepool People was formed last October shortly by Burn Valley Councillor Dave Hunter who had previously been deputy leader of the Labour Group on Hartlepool Borough Council.

Five candidates have been unveiled to stand in May’s planned local elections, which were postponed last year due to the pandemic.

Cllr Hunter and fellow Independent Councillor Paddy Brown, who quit as Labour leader in December, will stand under the group’s name and are its nominated leaders.

Three more confirmed candidates are taxi driver and Poolie Time Exchange worker Stephen Picton, community worker and forces veteran Jaime Horton and Darren Prince who in 2018 helped set up neighbourhood crime patrols.

Cllr Brown said: “They have joined us because we are the party that is purely about Hartlepool.

"They are already in Hartlepool offering lots of their time and effort into various projects in the town.

"It’s fair to say they chose us as much as we chose them.”

Hartlepool People say the group is based on three principals of cooperation by putting politics aside; working to make show the town and council in a positive light; and serving the community.

The group says it will ignore national politics and point scoring, and make decisions based only on what is best for Hartlepool.

It stated: “Politics gets in the way too often. We all need to work together to get our town through any difficulties it may face.

“We need to move past this era of negativity that has overshadowed our council for years.

“Our campaigning and activities will only ever be focused around what we can do to make Hartlepool better.

“Something that we are passionate about is that councillors should be active in their communities – not just in the council chamber.

“We want to clean up our town and will work hard with the people of Hartlepool to keep it that way.”

Cllr Brown said the group is also in talks with a number of other people and will announce further candidates in the coming weeks.

Related story: Former Hartlepool teacher becomes new leader of Labour group on the borough council

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