South Wight

Chris Cotton

I have been a member of the Youth Council for a year now. If I am re-elected I will continue to try to bring about more opportunities for young people to play music, such as an Island bands only music festival.

 I have also been campaigning for White Air to stay on the Island and if re-elected will also try to promote sport on the island.

 I would also like to extend the Student Rider discount system to the ferries to make travel to the mainland cheaper.

Arthur Halsey

I would like to see more arts and quiet activities in the Ventnor area. Ventnor Youth Centre should advertise itself more especially for its music workshops but also as a place to hold activities.

More needs to be done to get the youths off the streets in Upper Ventnor and to improve the perception of youths on the Island.

School travel needs to be looked at in terms of the routes taken and how the 3 mile radius is set.

Young people would benefit from more cycling activities, therefore we need more cycle paths and a map clearly showing cycle paths.

I will seek to put suggestion boxes in schools and youth centres and posters around places where young people hang out. This could be a way of advertising the youth council and getting ideas from young people.

I would also push for a little festival for young people with local young bands playing.

I will also press on with the IWYC campaign to get cheaper off peak ferry travel using the Student Rider as I.D.

Jade Young

Older teenagers, in the Bay Area, need more to do other than hanging around and getting into trouble, they need a safe place to meet, away from houses, without getting moved on.

The police interfere with groups of young people for no reason and are around us at the wrong times; they should look out for where the real trouble spots are. I am against the police just moving people on and would like to work with them on this and talk to them about giving people one warning before they give them a yellow ticket.

Teenagers don’t have much money and not everyone gets E.M.A so public amenities should be cheaper or even free for under 18s.

Young people are allowed to do different things when they get to a certain age and I will campaign to get this standardised.

I want more street lights in public parks such as Los Altos, in Sandown, to make it safer to walk through at night.

Jordan Cotton

I want to be elected to help make the process of school re-organisation as smooth as possible for students. I will do a survey amongst students to find out how they think this could be done.

School uniform policies should be made clearer before students and parents sign the contract. Students should have a say in these policies and school councils could consult them on it.

Bullying on school buses is an issue which needs sorting out; somebody needs to take responsibility to control the behaviour of some students. All travel to and from school should be free to improve freedom of choice 
in education.

Young people should be educated more about the work of charities and how to get involved in fund raising activities. This could be through putting on music events for young people to raise funds to help charities.

We get a lot of lessons on sex and relationship education but we need more on drug and alcohol awareness, safe internet usage in chatrooms and on certain games sites. Schools block many sites which are useful and should have better policies in terms of blocking sites.

Lewis Roberts O'Brien

I would love to be voted on to the youth council again this year to continue to make our Island a more modern, up to date and basically awesome place to live.

I will fight to keep White Air on the Island.

I’m in great support of music events and festivals and will work to bring more to our Island.

I have worked with Connexions, school forum representative, local youth club and helped organise a number of events.

Jack Cavanagh - Hodson

If elected  I’ll look at trying to get an Isle of Wight Student Card, which will get discounts in shops and on all forms of transport, and with your date of birth on so as it can serve as an I.D card.

I’ll also campaign for cheaper off peak ferry fares which will help people visiting universities, family and friends as well as accessing entertainments.

I will aim to get the council to look at developing the area near Sandown’s new skate park into an area for young people; this could include a multi use sports facility and other amenities. There are some derelict buildings, near the skate park, which attract vandalism and drug users; these buildings could be restored and used to provide space for art and music workshops.

Saskia Constable

Young people in Wroxall need more interesting things to do, especially in the evenings at weekends and during the holidays. The community centre could do more for young people as we are a part of the community too. This is an issue for young people all across the Island and
Youth clubs could help by opening after school clubs, when more people would go, and they could provide a range of activities including singing lessons.

School buses are a problem with bad behaviour and bullying; there should be supervisors on each bus and these could also supervise people getting on to the buses outside school, teachers do this at the moment and it takes up time they could be spending on school work, like marking, for example.
I will campaign for more healthy activities, all round the Island, and better publicity for them.

We need more recycling bins, in accessible places and in bright colours to attract attention to them.
Public toilets on the Island are a disgrace; run down and not cleaned enough. The council should be providing the community with modern facilities fit for the 21st century.

Tyne Samuel

15 – 18 year olds need facilities more specific to their age group, to meet and socialise; a youth cafe or some sort of social club would be ideal.
Y18 nights and PURE events attract only certain types of young people because of the music they play; there should be more places, like the Studio in Newport, with local bands playing and local comedians. We could also hire the Studio for more regular events.
I will support the youth council campaign to get the Student Rider scheme extended to the ferries for cheaper off peak travel across the Solent. Island students could then access more entertainments, visit friends and family more and be open to more opportunities including travel.
Schools and other organisations should give more credit to young people who get involved in voluntary and community work; they should be rewarded in a way which helps their future career.

Jon Smith

I’d like the opinions of youth to be heard on subjects such as wind farms because our views are being neglected and it’s older people who objected to the wind farm at Wellow.

I will work on the campaign to get cheaper ferry fares for teenagers to cross the Solent.

I’d campaign to retain events like White Air and to revive the moto cross, at Arreton, as these are popular with young people.

I’d like to see more local venues for live music, such as Sandown Youth Club, for example.

James Foote

If I am elected then I will support the £5,000,000 bid that was put together by the Isle of Wight Youth Council, which was accepted. This money will go towards building an indoor skate park which then converts into a venue for live music; connected to it will be a café so that people can come in and relax after school. It will also help with getting people off the street and earning themselves a bad name and will give them a positive thing to do, rather than hanging around on street corner getting drunk on Friday night.

I will also campaign to get more live music on the Island; this is because there is not a lot apart from the two festivals that we have and if there is any then it is not well publicized and you will only normally hear about it through word of mouth. Again this will give teenagers something positive thing to do on their weekends also it will promote island bands as well as the bigger bands.

Greg Hammond

Young people need more things to do in the evenings and weekends, youth clubs don’t advertise enough and could do more for older teenagers. The name “youth club” puts off older teenagers and the youth council could suggest a new name for facilities.

Many young people don’t know about the One Card and how it helps access to leisure centres. Access to leisure centres should be cheaper and the One Card publicised more.

The school bus pass system should be changes as the 3 mile limit is unfair to lots of young people. All school travel should be free and this could be funded by bringing the time you can use it until forward by an hour to 5pm.

David Osborne

I’ll look into getting more facilities and things to do for young people in Sandown and Shanklin to try to reduce crime, anti social behaviour and under age drinking.

I will encourage young people to get involved in organisations like the Army cadets because they don’t know how much you can gain from membership; you can learn first aid and get qualifications, like the Duke of Edinburgh Award which helps your future career.

Young people need to know more about the environment and to be more environmentally friendly. Things like breaking saplings or any kind of vandalism and dropping litter is harmful to the environment.

I will campaign for cheaper off peak travel on the ferries.

All these things will benefit young people as they will get respect from the rest of the community and improve the image of young people.

Rachael Millward

Older teenagers grow out of youth clubs and end up hanging around and doing nothing. We need places just for our age group to meet and socialise, which are modern facilities and have a relaxed atmosphere.

We need more places for live bands to play; places like the Studio in Newport. We could look for funds to hire out the Studio and other venues for events.

People who cause trouble and commit anti social behaviour need help to overcome their attitude problems. It would help to have people who’ve been through that situation and come through it to talk to the younger ones about their experiences. If just a few of these young people could change it would benefit all of us.

I will listen to all young people’s views and act on them where I can.