Students Hold Hustings for Local Elections
Students who volunteer as reporters for media outlet Jesmond Local organised a hustings event for those in North and South Jesmond Wards. Locals packed Jesmond’s 1901 Caffe Bistro on Tuesday May 3rd ahead of the council elections to be held on Thursday. All standing parties were represented, apart from UKIP who declined.
The hustings, the only one by local media, was an opportunity for potential councillors to interact with those in attendance and a broader audience as the event was liveblogged at jesmondlocal.com and also filmed and uploaded later in the week.
Student and Green Party candidate for South Jesmond Matthew Busby, 19 said of the annual event, “It is a fantastic event that helps to engage people into local politics and meet the candidates they can vote for as well as question their policies directly”. He continued, “it also promotes local independent business and to local politics and get them to explore the local businesses in Jesmond”.
The candidates were quizzed on topics ranging from protecting independent traders, the Acorn Road development and the student/non-student demographic of Jesmond, as well as private landlords. All candidates appeared hopeful of greater student and family cohesion. Despite this few students were actually in attendance.
The event packed the St George’s Terrace café as Imogen Scott- Chambers noted “we didn’t have enough chairs, people were standing up and people were coming late but just wanted to be involved”. The Jesmond Local reporter also acknowledged the difficulty of engaging with students, “With Jesmond they (students) only live for a year two years so they don’t really feel passionately about it”.
Similarly Busby said “it would have been nice to see more of the South Jesmond ward candidates and its shame more students weren’t in attendance”. However he remained hopeful of the event’s achievements as a “great way to encourage more people to become more involved in local politics”.
The event is annually organised by Jesmond Local as part of their efforts in ‘connecting local people’, while endeavouring to give students hands on journalism experience. Each year the ‘hyperlocal news service’ intakes a new cohort of students as volunteer reporters to train in various aspects of news gathering and reporting. They are trained by working journalists including Editor Ian Wylie and maintain a non for profit status.
Scott- Chambers believes the experience has connected her to the area. “If I hadn’t been part of Jesmond Local I wouldn’t know Jesmond as well as I do. Now a lot of us know local people in the community. So if I’m just walking around its like ‘Ah hi!’ and it’s the President of the JRA (Jesmond Resident’s association)”.