The Seacombe electoral area is a ‘ward’ including not only Seacombe but also Somerville, Poulton, and a large part of Egremont.  So that you will know as much as possible about the Labour Councillors you elected we will set out below something of their backgrounds.

Councillor Adrian Jones

Phone:              0151 638 9050

Email:                adrianjones@wirral.gov.uk

Website:           http://www.seacombelabour.org/ 

Surgeries:         First Friday of each month (except August and January).  6.15 at Wallasey Town Hall.

Or ask Adrian to pay you a visit in your own home.

Adrian and his wife, Chris, have lived in Seacombe for about twenty years. They have three children; one reading English at university and two in school.  Chris is a Ward Manager in a Wirral NHS Hospital and she is a former Liscard Councillor.

Adrian became the Mayor of Wirral in 2008 and to devote sufficient time to what is really very much a full time role he retired early from his position as a trade union official with the University and College Union, representing university lecturers.   Early retirement involved substantial salary loss, and pension loss, ‘to do the job properly’ but it enabled  him to represent the Borough at almost 600 events during his mayoral year.   The mayoralty is very much a non-political role in which the Mayor must ensure that Council meetings are conducted with complete fairness to all Councillors irrespective of their political leanings.  He was congratulated at the close of his year of office by the leaders of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties.

Ater leaving a secondary modern school at 15 Adrian worked in several ‘real world’ jobs, eventually becoming a steel-worker in the furnace plant at Llanwern.  In his early 20s he studied for ’A’ levels, as a mature student, and entered the University of Wales, Swansea, graduating in Politics.   After university he worked for a time in the City of Cardiff Education Department before becoming a full time official of NUPE (one of three unions that merged to become UNISON).  Later he became a senior lecturer in Higher Education.  He also chaired the South Wales District of the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) for some years, and went on to organise its North of Scotland District - embracing Tayside, Grampian, Highland, Orkney, Shetland, and the Outer Hebrides.  He came to Merseyside about twenty years ago as the Northern Ireland Official of the lecturers’ trade union, (now known as UCU) working from its Liverpool office. 

Adrian has worked in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England gaining a very broad experience of British politics.  He is a former member of the Newport, Gwent, County Borough Council and was the Secretary of Newport Trades Union Council.  For some years he has been a Wirral representative on the Merseyside Police Authority.  (A recent study revealed that MPA members devote about 500 hours a year to their Police Authority role.)

Adrian believes the Labour and Trade Union Movement to be the natural representative body for working people and their families.  He regards trade unions, and the Labour Party which they were instrumental in creating, as two wings of the same movement.  Just as the Conservative Party is ideologically committed to the needs and interests of bankers, finance capital, and the owners of industry, Labour is ideologically committed to the needs and interests of ordinary working people ‘by hand or by brain.’   

As well as his political work Adrian is closely associated with a number of prominent Wirral charities for which he is a volunteer. 

Adrian was directly involved in establishing the Seacombe’s Residents’ Associations.  He is personally well known to the very many residents he has helped with individual advice and case-work during years as their Councillor, as well as the continuous work done collectively for groups of residents. As well as the activities that are publicly reported this includes many family matters, housing, debt, anti-social behaviour, disputes with private landlords, and many others which by their nature are confidential.  This work is constant but it is never made public. 

Adrian is a governor of Oldershaw School; a member of the Merseyside Police Authority; and sits on a number of Council Committees.

A former competitive cyclist with the Newport Phoenix Cycling Club Adrian took part in time-trial racing for many years.  He can still often be seen pedalling  his (British made, half-century old) Claude Butler racing cycle at a more leisurly speed on the promenade.  At other times he is seen there, or in local parks, with his two dogs – a Welsh Collie and an English Springer.

Councillor John Salter

Phone:             0151 639 7786

Email:               johnsalter@wirral.gov.uk

Surgeries:       2nd & 4th Friday of each month.  6.00 at Poulton Primary School.

Or ask John to pay you a visit in your own home.

John is well known to many  in Seacombe as the former proprietor of John & Joan’s’ newsagents shop in Seacombe’s Brighton Street.  John retired from his newagency after about 21 years for him to devote his time fully to his Councillor’s duties.  He serves on the Merseyside Waste Authority doing an excellent  job for our people in a role that has little glamorous  publicity attached to it – just long hours of solid hard work.  He also serves on the Council’s Licensing and Planning Committees; the Mersey and the Manchester Port Health Authorities; and John Lennon Airport.  He is a governor of Riverside Primary School.

Like Adrian John also left school at 15 and worked in the ‘real world’.  His first job was as a bread delivery boy.  He then became a boy labourer in Cammel Lairds before gaining an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic.  He studied first at Birkenhead Technical College and then at Riversdale College in Liverpool, qualifying with an ONC in motor vehicle engineering. 

In his early twenties John worked overseas for British Leyland, returning to work for Jaguar as a Warranty Auditor.  He then went back overseas for Toyota as a General Foreman in Saudi Arabia.  He  returned once more to England for a post with Girling Brakes and then went b to Saudi as a Logistics Co-ordinator with ARAMCO, then the world’s biggest oil exporter. 

John misses the daily banter with the hundreds of customers – his newsagents shop becoming virtually an ‘always open’ Councillor’s surgery for residents’ concerns.  John’s retirement has enabled him to take a strong role in the residents’ associations which he helped in creating.