Sheffield City Region mayoral election: Labour narrows candidates from seven down to four
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Mayor Dan Jarvis, who is also MP for Barnsley Central, is standing down ahead of the next election in May 2022.
The list has now been narrowed down to just four candidates and party members will be able to vote on January 5, 2021.
Rachael Blake
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Hide AdDoncaster Councillor Rachael Blake represents the Rossington & Bawtry ward and holds the children’s social care, communities and equalities portfolio.
Councillor Blake has pledged to bring buses back into public ownership, and ‘help all four corners of South Yorkshire work together’.
Other pledges include supporting a new deal with employers and colleges to create fully funded ‘job guarantee schemes’, and fighting against the climate emergency.
Oliver Coppard
Oliver is a former Sheffield Hallam Parliamentary candidate, who came close to unseating Nick Clegg in 2015, and has since founded Campaigns Plus, a community level behaviour change consultancy.
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Hide AdMr Coppard says he would like to ‘build an even better region and deliver a New Deal for South Yorkshire that has Labour values at its heart: fairness, opportunity, community, cooperation and solidarity’.
Mr Coppard also says that ‘Public transport should be under public control’, and has pledged to plant 1.4 million trees across South Yorkshire – one for every person who lives here.
MORE POLITICS: South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis to earn more than £185,000 in salaries and donations this year
Lewis Dagnall
Mr Dagnall represented the Gleadless Valley ward on Sheffield Council before stepping down in May.
Mr Dagnall says he is standing for a ‘socialist Green New Deal for South Yorkshire’, and hopes to mandate a bus service network through franchising if elected.
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Hide AdMr Dagnall also pledges to ‘fight for the powers and resources necessary to deliver a localised skills agenda fit for our region and the twenty-first century’.
Jayne Dunn
Councillor Dunn, a senior councillor in Sheffield with the education, children and families portfolio, also runs a small business.
In the 1980’s she was a single parent who was made homeless, then living in social housing.
She taught in further education at Sheffield College, before setting up her own business in 2000.
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Hide AdCoun Dunn says she is ‘honoured’ to have been short-listed, and will prioritise public transport, ‘skilling-up’ the region and will support a ‘Green New Deal’ if elected.
Coun Dunn also said she will “Fight to get the money and work to develop the strategy to deliver [a public transport system].
“This means public ownership, contactless ticketing, and better bus routes.”