Change doesn’t start in Council Offices. It starts in our communities.

I didn’t learn politics from meetings or manifestos.

I learned it from people who got things done.

No fanfare. No waiting. Just care turned into action.

It starts when a resident leaves the light on at the community centre a little longer so a support group can meet. When parents come together to ask why the after-school club disappeared and work out how to bring it back. When a neighbour notices something isn’t right and checks in, instead of walking past.

That’s where change begins. Not with titles. With trust.Not in institutions. In communities.

The best ideas I’ve seen didn’t come from white papers. They came from people.From lived experience. From places that had been overlooked but not given up.

When that kind of leadership in our communities is recognised, supported and matched by those in power, something stronger takes root.

Because local government, when it works as it should, is not distant or transactional.

It is built on relationships. It helps people come together. It turns urgency into something lasting.

That’s the kind of partnership we need more of.

Not a council that speaks over residents, but one that listens.One that makes space for people to shape the services they rely on.One that values care just as much as it values competence.

And when we work that way, everything else begins to shift.

Local voices helping shape the future of their neighbourhoods.

Transport that reflects how people actually live and move.

Spaces where learning is possible at any age, and opportunity feels within reach.

Homes and green places that are built with care and feel rooted in the people who live there.

This is how progress happens. Side by side. Grounded in trust.With those already doing the work supported rather than overridden.

And as more of what matters stretches across towns — housing, climate, transport, skills — we need ways of working that stay close to where people live their lives, even while thinking across the map.

Ways of working that begin with a conversation on the doorstep.

That treat care not as a soft word, but as a method.

That’s the kind of change worth holding onto.

Not distant. Not performative.

Community up. Council backed. County wide. All the way through.

Change doesn’t trickle down. It rises up.