Tell us about yourself and why you are standing

My name is Steve Davies. I was born in Chester and have lived and worked here pretty much all my life. I am married with a grown up son. I have lived in what is now being called “Chester South” for over 30 years and we got married and our son went to both primary and secondary school in the constituency so I am about as embedded in the constituency as you can get! I wanted to stand in this election because I have become increasingly frustrated by the fairy tales spun by the other parties that we can somehow carry on doing what we have always done, pay no extra tax (or even less according to some) but somehow the things we depend on will get better and the climate crisis will be tackled. That simply isn’t true and it isn’t fair that people should be lied to so blatantly just to snatch their votes. So as a member of the only party to be brutally honest about the scale and cost of the challenges facing us I will use the opportunity to highlight the fantasy politics being played out by the other parties and give the people of Chester South & Eddisbury an opportunity to hear the reality for a change. Then, when they cast their votes, they will be doing so in full possession of the facts. Politics shouldn’t be about telling people what you think they want to hear, it should be about telling them the truth so they can decide on who the best people to deal with the issues in front of them are!

What personal attributes can you bring to the role?

I probably have the broadest range of life experience of any of the candidates standing in this constituency! I have lived and worked in Chester pretty much all my life. I left school in 1979 and since then have worked in the Trustee Department of a bank, as a Chauffeur, in the probate department of a firm of Solicitors, as the IT Development Officer for a charity, as a Lecturer in Further Education and before retiring I was a Faculty Director in Further Education. I had a spell of unemployment in the early 90’s (with family and a mortgage to provide for) and combined part-time jobs with being a mature student while I gained the qualifications to improve my prospects. As a result I have a range of life experience and skills that I will be surprised if any other candidates can match! 😊

What are your 3 main priorities if elected?

1) To ensure that the climate crisis is confronted in an urgent, sensible and coherent manner.

2) To ensure that the essential infrastructure for people’s daily lives (e.g water, energy, NHS and public transport) is properly run and funded. Where necessary (e.g water companies) by taking that infrastructure into public ownership

3) To address the shortage of affordable housing in a sensible and coherent manner by building houses that meet the highest possible standards of insulation and energy efficiency in places where they have access to nearby facilities (schools, shops etc) without requiring car journeys to access everything.

How would you assess the performance of the Government?

Dismal. I’m tempted to leave it at that but all I would add is “Point to something that you think is better now that it was 14 years ago” I genuinely can’t think of anything, can you?

What challenges do you face representing a diverse constituency – rural/urban- different sets of priorities and challenges etc ?

Every constituency, even every community, has a diverse range of issues so Chester South & Eddisbury is no different in that respect. The constituency does have a different tension from some however in that the 25% of Chester resents being sliced off the traditional constituency of City of Chester and the Eddisbury bit resents having a large urban block added to them with neither part feeling a natural affinity for the other. With the chunk of “Chester South” making up the major urban area, the other smaller towns and villages will feel that they are less likely to be heard. Yet it is the rural area that makes up the main area of the constituency. The eventual winner here will have to confront that tension on a daily basis.

What would you say to disaffected former residents of City of Chester?

First off, we are all still residents of THE City of Chester even though the former constituency has been axed in favour of this damned silly idea of 2 completely arbitrary constituencies that please nobody! I’m happy to go on record and say that if elected, one of my on-going campaigns would be to try and get the original constituencies reinstated even if it meant being a turkey that voted for Christmas and getting my own seat abolished!

What are the main challenges facing Chester South and how will you address them?

As I’ve mentioned in previous questions, Chester South has been artificially severed from the bulk of Chester by the creation of this artificial constituency that has no sense of community across the whole area. Chester South feels that it is in danger of losing identity as part of rest of the city. The eventual winner must work to ensure that they work closely with the winner in Chester North & Neston to ensure Chester South is fairly included in all decisions impacting on the City. Without that co-operation the danger is that Chester South will lose out or find itself being impacted by changes without having had a say in them.

What do you feel needs to happen for residents to adjust to climate change?

The plain fact is that we should have been adjusting to climate change for the past 50 years. For that length of time Greens have been warning that without halting the use of fossil fuels we would inevitably reach a dangerous tipping point of a 1.5 degree increase in average global temperature. Well that tipping point was passed last year. Take a look outside the window at the weather we have been having recently. This year we have had storm after storm, torrential rain and people have died in floods in Liverpool and mudslides in Yorkshire. Now we have passed the tipping point we can expect climate change to get worse and for the changes to happen faster. So the message is no longer to stop using fossil fuels in order to prevent climate change, it’s too late for that now. Now the message is stop using fossil fuels so we can try and limit how bad it gets, slow down the rate at which it gets worse and, hopefully, it will peak before things get impossible to survive. I will be 64 later this year, if I’ve inherited enough of my Dad’s genes I might hope to be around for maybe another 30 years. Our son is 33 and hopefully he can hope for another 60 years. We don’t have any grandchildren so that’s my family’s stake in the future but I am concerned that I won’t get to see out my life before disaster strikes, never mind my son. If you have young children or grandchildren you need to think about their survival. In order to help residents adjust to this new reality we need to subsidise home energy efficiency and insulation schemes as well as the scrappage of IC cars and the purchase of EVs. Every one of us needs to help to reduce the emission of carbon as much as possible but many of us need financial support to be able to afford to do so.

What is your stance on Palestine?

I have been asked this question several times since the start of this election and I have answered the same way each time. The Green Party has, from the very start of the current crisis, focussed on the need to uphold the rule of law. For that reason we have consistently criticised both Hamas and the IDF/Israeli Government for indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians. When other parties were failing to take a stand, we were calling for an immediate halt to hostilities on both sides to allow for both the release of hostages and the provision of aid to Gaza. It was only after the ICJ intervened that the other parties began to support that position.

My personal view is that there must be a majority of people on both sides who want this conflict to be ended peacefully immediately and that it is a small number of people, again on both sides, who prefer to see the violence continue no matter what the cost in innocent lives. We can only hope that mounting international pressure can force both sides into a halt in hostilities so that innocent people can stop being killed and that those on both sides who have been accused of war crimes by the ICJ can face justice.

What are your thoughts on housing policy?

There is no doubt that we have a desperate shortage of affordable housing but both the Conservatives and Labour have the same short-sighted view of how to approach the problem. The Conservative approach has been to slacken planning regulations in an effort to encourage developers to build more houses and allow them to build them to the lowest possible building regulations and often in inappropriate locations such as flood plains. Developers unsurprisingly try to minimise costs and maximise profits and so have pretty much exhausted the most attractive sites (by their criteria) and given up. Labour in response have decided to make it easier for them to build in green belt. Quite apart from the stupidity of reducing agricultural land at a time of increasing global instability and reduced food security, most of these green field sites result in “dormitory” developments with no social infrastructure (schools, shops, community facilities, public transport etc) and require private car use to access everything. Instead we should be requiring local authorities to spread small developments across their areas in appropriate locations instead of giant dormitory developments. Those new developments should also be accompanied by the extra investment needed in local health, transport and other services and should be built to Passivhaus or equivalent standards and include solar panels and heat pumps wherever possible.

What are your thoughts on our future relationship with the EU?

Brexit was economic suicide caused by the wilful refusal of the right to recognise the benefits that we gained from membership. Rejoining the EU is unlikely in the short/medium term due to a number of factors, not the least being that we would be unlikely to be able to rejoin on terms as favourable as the ones we had when we left. However it makes absolute sense to be fully in the customs union and aligned in as many ways as will benefit both our businesses and educational institutions as well as permit us to travel to and from the EU without the ridiculous restrictions that we have imposed on ourselves.

Is a trans woman a woman?

This is an emotive issue that has been artificially generated by the Right as part of an on going attempt to make “culture war” an issue that will generate support for them. The fact is that like the vast majority of people I do not have the lived experience to be able to make and informed, rational decision about something that could have a serious and lasting impact on the lives of some people. I would not dream of telling people who have faced discrimination on the basis of their skin colour that I am in a position to tell them how they should feel about the way they are treated, so why would I be any better qualified to pronounce on someone who wishes to change their sex? If a suitably qualified medical practitioner tells me that following surgery someone has transitioned to being a woman, then that person is a woman and I have no argument with that. The whole purpose of having experts is so when we don’t have the answers, we have someone cleverer than us to ask!

What are your views on renationalising services and utilities ?

Do it, as soon as is practically possible. No equivocation. There is no justification for services, such as water, being in private hands and being deliberately and systematically underfunded due to the payment of ridiculous executive salaries and shareholder bonuses while at the same time hiking bills in order to repair the damage done by the underinvestment. The same applies to our energy infrastructure where the under capacity of the national grid is now the single major obstruction to bringing new renewable energy sources on line and improving the EV charging network. So the re-nationalisation of water, rail and retail energy should be a priority.

What 3 key policies from the national manifesto will encourage people to vote for you

In a nutshell:

1) Creating A Fairer, Greener Economy – Taxing wealth fairly, using taxation to drive fossil fuels out of our economy and bringing water companies, railways and retail energy companies into public ownership.

2) The Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter – see my answer on housing policy earlier!

3) Building A Fairer, Healthier Country – Guaranteed access to an NHS dentist, Same day access to a GP in case of urgent need and immediate boost to NHS staff pay to help with staff recruitment and retention.

What is your stance on immigration ?

If you believe the majority of the press, we are swamped with people coming to this country that we don’t want or need and that same message is used as a “dog whistle” by some of the political parties (who shall remain nameless). The fact is those same people who complain about immigration, also expect the NHS to be fully staffed as well as all of the jobs in hospitality, logistics agriculture etc that we do not have people capable or willing to do to be fully staffed. We do not seem to think there is a problem with nearly half a million Brits living in Spain but when other people want to come here then that isn’t right! The issue isn’t who wants to come here, it is what jobs they do and the tax they contribute when they do them. If they are contributing to this country then in my view they should be as welcome here as we are in Spain or elsewhere!

David Cameron said recently that every village and town had something to be proud of. What are you proud of in Chester South and Eddisbury?

I can only talk confidently about the bit of Chester South and Eddisbury that I have lived in for the past 30 or so years! So here’s something I’m proud of from my village of Christleton. Next year will be the 150th anniversary of our village fete! For 150 years, apart from 2 world wars and a pandemic, we have had a fete organised by villagers, for villagers (and anyone else who wants to visit!) to raise money for local groups, clubs and societies. It’s a beautiful example of a community doing something that has a positive impact and everyone has a fun day out. And I’m proud have been the Treasurer for it for the last 30 years!