Amy O'Boyle is 19 and has Lived in Castor her whole life. She attended the local Castor and King's Schools.
Currently studying Politics and International Relations at the Queen's University Belfast.
 
Amy O'Boyle Says:

"As a student of politics I am constantly analysing governments. However, no degree is needed to see the state of our country. I want to see a local council with real control over local issues, and one which can spend time serving our community instead of getting caught up in red-tape. If elected, I will push for the independence of local health, transport and environmental services, and drive to give power back to head teachers and local police forces so that we have experts running our community rather than national bodies. Our villages face mounting pressure to expand and assimilate, which we know is not best for our community. If elected, I shall use my position to preserve the village way of life that our government seems to be so happily eroding. I am not a politician; I am a local, with the best interests of our neighbourhood at heart."

Karen How is a 27-year-old music teacher currently working in a number of schools across Peterborough.  A member of the Green Party since 2005, she has previously contested District Council seats in Derbyshire and Huntingdon, and now co-ordinates the Huntingdonshire branch of the Party.  Particularly interested in social justice and human rights, she is also involved with Amnesty International, CND and the Stop the War Coalition.

Karen How Says:

“The Greens strongly oppose current attempts to build on green belt land to the north of Peterborough.  I have been very impressed by the stand recently taken by the residents of Glinton against attempts by the Diocese of Peterborough to sell off agricultural land behind Arthur Mellows Village College for a huge new residential development.  Greens appreciate the increase in demand for housing in the city but would press for new developments to be focussed first on brown field sites close to the city centre.  This would revitalise the city centre, help to conserve our rural open spaces and minimise the number of car journeys into the city.  I am also concerned by the level of financial cutbacks now threatening a range of local civil service jobs in Peterborough.  I would push for public services able to benefit the general public and the local economy.  A decent level of service is dependent upon a properly funded local government workforce."

Johanna Potter is 38 and sells elite motor cars for the Marshall Motor Group in Peterborough. She lives in Glinton, where her family moved while she was a child.
She is married to Lite FM newsreader and author Simon Potter and has two children – Nathaniel, aged 4½, and Abigail, nearly 3.

Johanna is secretary of the Glinton Village Hall Management Committee and, before deciding to stand for election, had applied to become a governor of the Peakirk-cum-Glinton Primary School. She is awaiting a decision.

Johanna Potter Says:

"The Conservatives have a comfortable majority on Peterborough City Council. With only a third of the seats being elected on May 1, it is guaranteed that the Conservatives will still have a comfortable majority afterwards, regardless of the result in this ward.
Whatever your political beliefs, that means there is no compelling reason to vote along party lines on May 1. The balance of power will not change. I believe party politics shouldn’t come into local matters in any case. I believe we should all vote for issues, not party names.

I am standing as a “No to Mass Housing” candidate (although for legal reasons I will appear on the voting card as an independent). I believe that all of the extra houses that Peterborough City Council wants can be accommodated in new-town developments like Hampton and the proposed Norwood area. I passionately believe the big developments should be kept away from our existing villages. Clay Lane won’t be the last threat to our village way of life. There will be more. We need to fight them.

When the Labour government declared war on villages like ours, by demanding that thousands of homes be built on England’s green and pleasant land, the Conservatives should at least have stood up and argued – demanding that new homes be built in traditional Labour areas as well.

They didn’t. They let us down.

And Peterborough City Council not only meekly agreed to take Prescott’s urban sprawl, but they volunteered to take thousands more homes than even he wanted to inflict on us here. That’s a fact. I say that was wrong!
That is why they’re trying to cram more and more housing on ridiculously small plots of land in our historic and beautiful villages.

This is not a “nimby” issue – there are solid, practical reasons for saying the developments should be elsewhere – our schools can’t cope, our doctors can’t cope, our roads can’t cope. I passionately want to conserve the village way of life.

I want weekly bin collections back. Like mass housing, this is an area on which I disagree with Peterborough’s Conservatives. They chose fortnightly collections, it wasn’t the government that forced them on us. Many councils – Conservative and Labour – chose to keep them weekly.

I want better education for my children. After ten years of Conservative rule in Peterborough, the city has slumped to 124th out of the 150 councils in the country at Key Stage 3 level. That’s not what I pay my council tax for!

And talking of council tax, I’m not happy that under the Conservatives, Peterborough City Council has put council tax up more than all but seven councils in the whole country over the last ten years.

We need a local councillor who will lead from the front in fighting mass housing plans before the public even knows about them, not one who hopes that nobody will find out and only reluctantly joins the fight when they do.  We need a local councillor who will campaign for no mass housing developments not one who asks the developers to withdraw their application only to see a new one re-submitted after the next election is over.
I have a burning passion to defend our village life. Once our villages are ruined, they’re ruined forever.
Join me! Say NO to mass housing!

If I win this election, it will send a strong message to the planners that we – the people – want all this housing to be built elsewhere.

If I lose this election, Peterborough City Council will take that as a sign that you don’t care about massive house building plans on your doorstep and, make no mistake about it, they will take it as a green light to build as much as they can here.

It is time to make a stand."