The reason for my standing as an Independent member of the Welsh Assembly is to give the people of Newport East a more representative person.

A person with the same aspirations of family life and values as my constituents. Our standards are continually falling to make things so easily achievable, which is continually happening in the society of today, epitomised by standards in health care, policing, sentencing of criminals and the loss of respect on our streets.

The uncaring society where local people have no input into their communities and their voices are muffled by the beaucrats from afar. I do not drive the party political bus nor am I funded by big business or the unions.

I am not a puppet but a representative of the people, I do not represent a defined body or group. I have served my town and county of Monmouthshire on the ethos of fairness and supported policies of need and not greed. Newport East has suffered the loss of steel making, clothes manufacturing, manufacturing in light engineering, a down turn in the computer world and most recently the closure of Europe's premier pulp mill. We have lost the work and the skills and the young people are emigrating.

Through the continued centralisation shopping policies of various governments we now have empty degenerated shopping centres loss of post offices, loss of corner shops, closure of leisure centres and other amenities. Our communities have become archipelago's of isolationism.

Our schools fair no better with many being educated in Portakabins and even one school built out of second world war Spitfires, a stark contrast from the fine hardwoods and slate of the Assembly building.

The policies we need to focus on in view of our loss of industrial base are tourism and heritage within our communities. We need to have the funds from central government redefined.

The Barnett formula is not enough, more vocational study in schools, expand our youth services. Start to rebuild our schools using some of the severn hundred million pounds lying around in Westminster, reopen police stations 24/7, discontinue with the call centre mentality and introduce zero tolerance on anti social behaviour, discourage out of town shopping and bring shops back into the community.

I feel passionate about the place I live and want to make it a better place for future generations.