Candidates chosen for Carlisle Young Mayor

(Date of issue: Monday, 11 October 2010)

Clean streets, making traffic lights go faster and bringing more people to Carlisle will be the hot topics discussed as part of this year’s Young Mayor event.

What young people love about Carlisle will also be revealed as part of a closely fought election race to be held this Wednesday (13 October), at 1pm, in the Civic Centre’s Council Chamber.

The Carlisle City Council Young Mayor event gives the year 5 and 6 (9 – 11 year olds) pupils the chance to become Young Mayor of Carlisle, experiencing local democracy in action. Five primary schools will be taking part and have each have chosen a candidate to represent them. The five contenders are:

• Bobby Ward (10) - Hayton C of E Primary School;
• Chloe Prangnell(10) - Inglewood Junior School;
• Tom Cox (10) – Norman Street Primary School;
• Meg Burns (10) - Rockcliffe C of E Primary School; and
• Ilyaana Kane (9) – Upperby Primary School.

Chaired by the Mayor of Carlisle, Cllr Mary Styth, the candidates will present their manifestos to an audience of fellow pupils (including Cummersdale Primary School), teachers and councillors. They will set out the reasons why they would like to be Young Mayor, why they would make a good Young Mayor and what they love about Carlisle.

After each presentation, a question and answer session will take place and then it is down to an important vote, which in true election style has voting slips, a polling booth and ballot boxes. The winning candidate is then announced by the Mayor as ‘Young Mayor 2010’.

Leader of Carlisle City Council, Cllr Mike Mitchelson, said:

 “This is a special event as the young people taking part have taken the time to think about what it is like to live in their communities and go to school there. They have looked around and found out what is important to them, their classmates and families. This is a day for each candidate to feel proud of their achievement to show that democracy is part of their everyday life.”

Jessica Barker, Young Mayor 2010, who represented Inglewood Junior School and is now attending Richard Rose Central Academy, will officially hand over the badge of office to Carlisle’s new Young Mayor for 2010. This is the tenth year that Carlisle City Council has supported Local Democracy Week (11-15 October), the national campaign which aims to get people involved in decision making and to take part in democracy.