Christopher J Furlong
Labour Party
Norden Ward
My name is Chris Furlong and I am standing as the Labour Candidate in Norden Ward. I am a Contract Manager and I have lived locally for 14years. I have been married to Kerrie who works in the N.H.S. and we have two lovely children who go to a local school.
I am standing to become a Councillor so that I can protect services for the community of Norden. In November a number of Lib Dem Councillors resigned due to petty internal infighting. A few weeks later the Conservatives and Lib Dems abandoned their leadership and left the Council in disarray. Labour had no alternative but to take up the reigns and to sort out the mess that the Lib Dems had left behind them.
Despite having to make £64 million worth of cuts in the budget, the highest this town has ever faced thanks to the cuts that the Tory/Lib Dem coalition voted through in Parliament, the Labour administration passed a budget that prevented any Surestart Children’s Centre and any Library from being closed. Labour has tried to keep the damage to frontline services to a minimum however due to the drastic cuts that the Tory/Lib Dems imposed on Rochdale this has not always been possible. To protect these services, Labour has halved the number of managers who earn over £50,000 over the next two years, scaling back the Council’s media unit and ensuring the Mayor uses a more cost efficient car.
Nationally the Lib Dems have abandoned one manifesto pledge after another, most prominently their promise to abolish tuition fees. The Lib Dems now support tuition fees of £9,000 a year. Locally the Liberal Democrats put personal disputes ahead of the wishes and needs of the electorate and of their elected responsibility to the people of Norden and the wider community of Rochdale.
With your support on May 5th I will fight my hardest for the people and community of Norden and I will ensure that you have a voice to protect the local services that you use, because they are also the services that I use.
