Our local man for Huntingdon District Council.

Jonathan Salt – an independent community choice for St. Ives on the Huntingdon District Council.

The voices of ordinary people need to be heard and taken seriously.  “I am an Independent Town Councillor in St. Ives and am offering myself as a community candidate, with my first loyalty to my constituents and my conscience and not a political party.”

A landslide victory for local Independent candidates in 2008 saw Jonathan Salt elected as the Independent Town Councillor for St. Ives. He served as Vice-Chair of both the Amenities Committee and represented the St. Ives Town Council on the St. Ives Environmental Improvements Committee.  He campaigned, alongside other Independent Councillors, to save the St. Ives Corn Exchange, which is now open as one of the premium venues in Huntingdonshire.

Jonathan Salt is a local business man and community worker.  For the last four years he has run Ojemba Travel, specialising in Holocaust Education, and Ojemba Education, working as an educational consultant and provider of supply teaching.  Working in close partnership with the State Memorial Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau Jonathan has developed a detailed and far-reaching educational programme for young people and adults. He has recently graduated as a Fellow of the Imperial War Museum, London, in Holocaust Education.

As the owner of a local small business trading from St. Ives, Jonathan has served on the Huntingdon regional committee of the Federation of Small Businesses as a representative of St. Ives.  This has given him an insight into the challenges faced by small businesses and retailers in the local community. It is important that local government supports our small businesses especially in the midst of a very difficult recession, and addresses issues such as free parking in our town centre.

He has served the local community since 2001 when he founded the highly successful St. Ives Youth Theatre, with a current membership of 60 young people aged 11 -18, and with a long  waiting list.  Always over-subscribed, the Youth Theatre, a registered charity, has enhanced the education of many young people from Huntingdonshire and works closely with local secondary schools.  Jonathan has led a team of willing volunteers to develop one of the most successful Youth Theatres in Cambridgeshire, participating twice in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

He believes in the importance of listening to the voice of the local community in decision making, and is concerned about the insensitive development in St. Ives, which often pays little regard to the existing lack of infrastructure, and the gradual demise of our town as a retail centre. He has been a campaigner for keeping Hinchingbrooke Hospital as an NHS hospital, and will be monitoring carefully the developments at Hinchingbrooke once the contract as been signed. He believes in a good local school system supported by locally elected representatives of the community who will put the education of young people first.  Jonathan believes in a fair and just society, where the community cares for the weak and vulnerable in its midst, and wants to ensure that all have a voice in the decisions taken in the interests of the town.

He will vote for what is right for St. Ives, rather than how a political party will require him to vote.