Name: Mary Mills (Labour)
Ward: Peninsula
Please can you tell Greenwich.co.uk readers a little about yourself.
I am an elderly widow who has lived in Greenwich for the past 41 years. My working life was mainly spent in the voluntary sector, including a stint at North Charlton Project, but latterly working on a community response to Docklands redevelopment, eventually concentrating on issues around the environment. I have a PhD in industrial history and am Secretary of Greenwich Industrial History Society – and because of this have written a number of books on the subject, concentrating on east Greenwich, the Peninsula and the riverside walk.
Why does it matter that people vote in council elections?
Of course it matters that people vote – we should be all about a participative democracy. It also matters that people speak up for what they want for the area they live in and I have always done what I can to encourage people to get in touch and to pass on what they say where I can.
Why are you standing to be a councillor?
I hope I can make a difference to people’s lives in east Greenwich, North Charlton and the Peninsula. There is so much to do and so many things which are difficult. For many people it is hard to live in an area where there is so much change (although for others it is exciting). We need to understand those stresses and respond to them sympathetically and constructively and I do feel I have some very special experience of this. I also feel that in the ten years I have been on the Council I have learnt a great deal of how to tackle the many everyday problems which people have, and hopefully tackle them effectively and realistically. I very much feel that it is my duty to talk to as many local people as I can to learn what they want from their councillors, and I would encourage them to get involved. I am very used to handling email, and twitters and stuff like that – and hope to be able to use it to interact more and more local people. Over the past ten years I have developed a newsletter about local people and local events which goes out monthly – so I have always been happy to hear if people are doing things they want others to hear about, and to add addresses to the list of those who want to get it.
What do you like most about the area you wish to represent?
What do I like most about the area. Where do I start? When I moved to Greenwich in the 1960s I was knocked out that I was finally in an area with Labour councillors, a Labour MP and a Labour GLC member. I am still very proud of that. However I had come from Gravesend and both there, and here in Greenwich, we have the river – and that is a wonderful thing threading through all our lives. But now – oh how I miss the sound of the boats all day! – and the great cacaphony at New Year. But I am very proud of east Greenwich – it IS the centre of the world, its an exciting place to be and I am grateful every day that I live here.
If elected, what would be your priorities for the Peninsula ward over the next four years?
Where do I start with that? I suppose I want the people who live here to be happy to live here and to have good and fulfilled lives. I suppose that also I want to work towards a cleaner, greener, totally sustainable environment. That’s the long term. In the short term its sorting out all those 100s of day to day problems which hopefully are building blocks towards the long term. Or at least I hope so.
Kate Powling says
I have lived in Mary Mills’ ward for six years now and in that time I have had a great deal of contact with her on a number of issues. She is friendly, approachable and helpful : everything you could ask of a local Councillor and it doesn’t surprise me that her personal vote in the Ward is always substantially higher than her colleagues. (See Andrew Gilligan’s latest post).
I wish there were more like Mary: Greenwich / the country would be a better place.
(I am not a Labour Party Activist. This is a genuine post!)
Indigo says
Yes, Mary Mills is a bright light in the now very corrupted NoooLabour world.
Mary, the latest leaflet distributed in the Peninsula Ward is a very good instance of how your colleagues and your Party let you down. Viz
1. The first “resident” pictured on the inside saying why he will vote Labour is Andrew Blundy – solicitor and Labour party worker (he actually delivered my leaflet), one-time (and for all I know continuing) chair of the Labour Group; and documents released during the MPs’ expenses expose revealed that Blundy acted for Nick Raynsford’s partner Alison Seabeck MP in the matter of the purchase of a constituency office in/around Plymouth. You can hardly get closer to the Labour party than that – couldn’t you all have found another, non-Party worker, resident for your leaflet? I have known Andrew personally for a number of years, and he is already aware of my profound misgivings about how seldom he declares his interest in the Labour Party, eg on the PCC of St Alfege Church.**
2. The graphic on the back of the leaflet entitled “A vote for any other party lets the Tories in …” is meant, one assumes, to be derived from the results of the 2006 local election (turnout 35%). http://greenwich.greenparty.org.uk/localsites/greenwich/news/2010_05_04_dodgy_graph.html Something very odd going on: I remember it as the Greens remember it but the Council web site seems to “remember” differently.
** One particular character trait of the Labour Party in Greenwich that bugs me is their attitude to money: Labour seems to think money grows on trees, ie must always be provided by someone else – PFI “trees” (ie money created by capitalism), central funding (eg LDA grants), legacies by private individuals (personal wealth donated, say, to a church) – just for them to pluck and waste. There is no sense of saving for a rainy day (or the years of austerity that lie before us, no matter who wins the General Election).