Kevin Illingworth is standing as an Independent candidate in next week’s Leith Walk by-election. What does he stand for?
Why have you decided to stand as a candidate?
There are so many groups trying save various parts of Edinburgh which shows there are serious problems with the planning and decision making process. I’m trying to save Edinburgh from its own council otherwise we might end up in the streets waving our pitchforks.
Voting for the same old same old is not going to change anything. I worry that one day I will wake up surrounded by tourists and students and I’ll be the only one left.
My three main campaign messages are:
– hands off our sports facilities
– stop cutting down our trees
– go away and rethink the trams
So what do you think about the tram extension?
If we could all go away for the weekend and come back to find the tram up and running that would be great. But we all know its going to be years of chaos.
The council’s plan is poorly thought out but because it’s Leith Walk they think they can get away with it. I’m pretty sure the people in Morningside would not accept it, neither should we.
Take the St James development as an example. No one said Leith Street would be closed for a year. Or that Picardy Place would be turned into Spaghetti Junction. I wonder how many nasty surprises are hidden in the trams plan.
Meanwhile they have promised £2.4 million to help local businesses during the tram works. 2.4 million is less than a quarter of what they spent on the enquiry into the original fiasco.
Divide that by the number of businesses and the number of weeks (assuming it finishes on time). It’s £15 a week, which is the same as my daughter’s pocket money.
But the council has spent a lot of money improving Leith Walk …
Yes they spent £9 million in 2016-17 only to dig everything up again! What a waste of money. That’s £360 per voter that the council have thrown away. I think that’s a scandal. In fact I think everyone should get their council tax frozen until the trams are finished. That would be an incentive to get them done on time. Plus I want my £360 back!
And they are redeveloping Meadowbank Stadium …
Yes – they are replacing a grandstand with a garden shed. Sports facilities will be 40% of what they were. We have a UK wide obesity crisis and City of Edinburgh’s response is to make it harder to exercise.
Meanwhile Edinburgh Leisure will get free office space, In order to make the demolition easier 63 trees have been cut down and more are sure to follow to allow for the rumoured 600 student flats and the hotel to be built.
Yes, but weren’t you a student once?
Indeed I was. And a couple of years ago I had a student staying with me because ironically she couldn’t afford a student flat. But today’s students don’t spend money locally, they buy most things online. You can’t build an economy on students and tourism. We need affordable housing for young families. My definition of “affordable” is that a nurse can afford it.
But they are replanting those trees?
Replanting 50 year old trees with saplings. Just like Princes St Gardens. Perfectly good trees chopped down by hooligans with chainsaws. It’s creating jobs alright: jobs for lumberjacks.
Why is sport so important then?
I bang on about it because sport brings communities together. If you are playing football, badminton, rugby, cricket or any other sport you don’t care about the people’s colour, religion, or who they fancy. If you replace team sports with soulless gyms that community cohesion all gets lost.
What do you think about Brexit?
This election is about schools, transport and getting our bins emptied. Whoever we elect on April 11th can’t do anything about Brexit, Indyref, Trump, the Middle East, Faslane or Putin. Other parties might claim otherwise but they are not being honest with you.
If there was one thing you could change about the council, what would it be?
I would make bulky item pickups free and with a next day service, that would get rid of fly tipping overnight. It’s crazy that you can buy a mattress online and its delivered the next day while it takes the council 2 weeks to pick up the old one. It took me 9 days to get a new passport and 14 days to get a mattress uplifted.
What is your day job?
Well, I am not a career politician and I’m not a PA to an MSP. I have worked in IT for a long time and I work for a company that sells software and medical products to veterinary surgeons.
I have previously worked for an ATM company, in finance, in local government and the NHS. I have also run two businesses
Finally, is it true that you once helped to catch a serial killer?
Yes, it sounds dramatic, but I put together the evidence that led to Dr Shipman being arrested.
The Leith Walk by-election takes place on Thursday, 11 April.
The by-election will elect one councillor from 11 nominated candidates to represent the ward along with three existing councillors.
The candidates are (in alphabetical order):
Steven Alexander, UK Independence Party (UKIP)
Jack Caldwell, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Nick Gardner, Scottish Labour Party
Kevin Illingworth, Independent
David Don Jacobsen, Socialist Labour Party
Tom Laird, Scottish Libertarian Party
Dan McCroskrie, Scottish Conservative and Unionist
Rob Munn, Scottish National Party (SNP)
John Ferguson Scott, Independent
Lorna Slater, Scottish Green Party
Paul Mitchell Stirling, The For Britain Movement.
