Bohemia Village Voice

Cath came to the Voice office with her agent, Peter Pragnell.
Voice: What is your background? Cath:  Catering. I’ve run restaurants with my husband for many years. We decided to have our own business and then had a craft business in George Street as my husband is a watercolour artist. I’ve been a part-time volunteer for the Conservatives whenever I could, then became an election agent.
Voice: What is your political experience? Cath:  I’ve been the background girl. I’ve always been behind them and told them what to do, but now I have an agent I feel I can get out of the back room and get into the front room. Peter: When we lost our M.P. Cath was one of two people who kept the Conservative Party Association going in Hastings.
Voice: What are the local issues?
Cath: Crime. I’m pleased that Gensing is not on Neighbourhood Watch very often. Parking. It’s a shame that they didn’t do the drop on, drop off point for parking around St. Paul’s school when they were doing the building round Amherst Road.  The need to keep small local shops for people without cars. Lidls is handy but I have reservations about Asda. I’m very concerned about the effect it would have on traffic at the Silverhill junction and the impact on local Silverhill shops, especially the post office and chemist. Lots of Asdas have post offices and chemists in them.
Voice: What do you plan to do if elected?
Cath: Try to represent the people who elected me. It doesn’t matter which party they voted for or whether they even voted at all. There’s lots of apathy. It makes me cross when women say they don’t vote, because women fought hard to get the vote. My aunt always said, “If you don’t vote you can’t moan!
This is a ward of two halves, represented by each side of London Road. On one side there are small houses and little shops, on the other, more affluent houses. I would like to see the people each side meet at least once a year as a Gensing Association. Try to do something about residents’ parking. It’s a difficult situation because of multi-car households. People need more than one car in a family. Where there are twin bins litter has gone down. It’s little things like that that make up the quality of life. This is what we’ve been hearing all over the town.
Voice: What distinguishes you from the other candidates?
Cath: For a number of years while working for the Conservatives I’ve helped people who ring the office and told them where to go for help. It would be nice to be able to do that myself and not put them through to somebody else. Peter: Cath is the sort of person we’re looking for to win this seat and regain our majority.

Conservative candidate Cath Burrows