Tories confirm candidate for North Tyneside Mayoral Election next year
Coun Liam Bones will stand as the Conservative Party's candidate for the Elected Mayor of North Tyneside in 2025.
by Austen Shakespeare · ChronicleLiveThe leader of the North Tyneside Conservatives has been selected as the Tory candidate for North Tyneside's mayoral race next year.
Tory councillor Liam Bones, of Preston with Preston Grange ward, has now entered the race to become the next Elected Mayor of North Tyneside. The incumbent Labour Mayor, Dame Norma Redfearn, announced she would not seek re-election in 2025 earlier this year, after being elected to the post three times since 2013.
According to a media release, coun Bones is running on a platform with four key priorities. Namely, tackling anti-social behaviour, town centre regeneration, road and pavement repairs, and protecting pensioners.
The new mayoral candidate has pledged to put older people "at the heart of everything we do", in the face of the heavily criticised move by the government to cut back the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners nationally.
Coun Bones said: "As a councillor for the last three years I've seen the shocking way this council treats communities across North Tyneside. Misplaced priorities and vanity projects have been all they focus on. It is time for a change.
"We need leadership that will focus on the real issues affecting our area every day - not just feathering our own nests."
As the mayoral race heats up in North Tyneside, the race for leader of the national Conservative Party has hit fever-pitch, with Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick left to battle it out, following the shock defeat of former front-runner James Cleverly last week.
The Tory Reform Group, a "compassionate" and "open-minded" independent conservative group, of which coun Bones is a member, refused to endorse either Badenoch or Jenrick.
When approached on the leadership race, coun Bones told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "We have two very good candidates and I am still making my mind up."
Following the Conservative Party's historic defeat in July this year, coun Bones said: "Elections are won from the centre ground and that is where the party must move to win back the British people."
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