I have loved being an islander for 45 years, 15 of them as a 3rd Hayling scout leader.

Full statement

My 3 boys all went to Hayling schools, and did brilliantly from them. I have ridden six Paris to Hayling charity bike rides. And now I campaign with Cycle Hayling and Cycling UK for better cycle paths.

Hayling is unique. Every time I ride over that beautiful bridge onto the island, I smile. I cannot help it.

But I will NOT be smiling when the Tory Local Plan builds thousands more houses without the right infrastructure. The Tories have cynically under-counted windfall housing that we’ll get anyway from in-fill and small developments, so that their big builder friends can build new estates on our greenfield land.

Because they misused the dramatically lower figures from the recession to estimate that we would only build 144 windfalls by 2036. That is probably a thousand too low, and means at least a thousand more houses.

And I will NOT be smiling when those houses need very expensive retrofitting for climate change 5 or 10 years down the track, because the Tories watered down the building standards.

Nor when islanders cannot get doctor appointments, or when the water and sewage cannot keep up with the increased demand or the sea floods in.

Nor when traffic gridlocks daily. Hayling is bottle-shaped, and it has a massive bottleneck – The Bridge.

And I certainly will not be smiling that the Tories have failed miserably to build decent cycle paths to relieve our existing traffic, noise and air pollution, enhance our community, and make us healthier.

In my IT career, I worked in both public and private sectors. I have seen first-hand poor, inefficient public services transformed by smart outsourcing into privatised world-beaters.

But I have also seen great public services wrecked by profit-driven asset stripping just for political ideology.

The Tories privatise everything, which has not worked in Havant. Then Labour re-nationalises everything, taking us back to the seventies.

I am standing for Lib Dems because they combine the best of market forces and public ownership.

The Tory monopoly has failed us in Havant and at Westminster. They need challenging. They cannot go on governing for just the third of the population that keep them in power.

And I am standing for a democratic Britain, that reflects every vote, not just for Tory billionaire donors.

It’s time Havant's Tory council had someone to challenge them and DEMAND BETTER.

Please vote Lib Dems and Wilf Forrow for Hayling East.

Wilf