News
Feb 7, 2010
Catastrophic breakdown in local democracy across South Norfolk
Category: News | Posted by: stevet
UK Youth Parliament Election 2010
South Norfolk Youth Action (SNYA) has two members, Chloe Donovan and Will Litchfield, standing in this year’s UK Youth Parliament Election. SNYA has a long history of working with and supporting our UKYP member in South Norfolk and is disappointed to learn that nearly all the young people in South Norfolk will be denied a vote in this year’s elections due to lack of schools participating as polling stations. Whilst we accept that it is the right of all the schools and colleges not to participate, we find it morally indefensible that by choice, they would deny their students the only chance of participating in the election. To put this into some perspective, if this was a national election in any part of the world the United Nations would have to intervene to ensure fair play.
We have asked our youth worker and Active Citizenship Coordinator in South Norfolk, Stephen Thomas, to intervene on our behalf and he has successfully negotiated with two more High Schools to participate in this bi-annual election and extended the close of voting to Wednesday 10th February at midday. I, Josh Worley, have spoken to my citizenship teacher and I am pleased to announce that my school too has now agreed to participate in the UK Youth Parliament elections but unfortunately to date no voting box or ballot papers have been delivered.
It is unusual that the schools that participated in the elections two years ago are not taking part this year and quite sad because more young people (%) voted in the Norfolk UK Youth Parliament elections than adults in the last General Election. South Norfolk also previously had the highest amount of votes cast by young people in any district in Norfolk’s UK Youth Parliament elections.
Confusion has reigned supreme this year with the change of boundaries excluding Wymondham High and Wymondham College from the South Norfolk elections. This was further exasperated when a candidate from Wymondham High School appeared in an e-mail confirming she was a candidate in South Norfolk. When this was followed up we were told that she had withdrawn from the election.
SNYA Radio would like to formally and unreservedly apologies to both schools for any harm this article or any other press release has caused these fine educational establishments. We would also like to point out that both schools are acting as polling stations as they have always done in the past, in their new constituency. We appreciate and understand the schools are upset and hope that they will continue to support South Norfolk Youth Action.
I have tried to investigate why we have been told that there are only two schools in South Norfolk participating in this year’s election and why we were not informed of the boundary changes. I also tried to find out where we can vote by phoning the national UK Youth Parliament telephone number. They gave me the telephone number of the local contact but she was not able to give me the information I required at the time of the phone call. However, she would be able to let me know the result of the election by Friday 12th February.
I have asked my Youth Worker / Citizenship Coordinator, Stephen Thomas to make a statement but he has declined because he has been told that the County Citizenship Team is the only department that can make press releases regarding the UK Youth Parliament election.
During Saturday’s interview with Cllr. John Fuller, Leader of South Norfolk Council, I raised our objections to the UK Youth Parliament Elections, told him how adults were letting the youth of South Norfolk down and of the damage that this had done to SNYA’s reputation. He was absolutely furious with the situation and pledged to investigate the matter further.
Josh Worley
SNYA Radio - Station Manager.
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