2024 LGIU & CCLA Cllr Awards: Interview with Councillor Chris Burden, Young Councillor of the Year, Eng & Wales

Councillor Chris Burden from Wolverhampton Council speaks about being named Young Councillor of the year in 2024

Transcript

00:00it's massively important to have young people involved in council roles I mean

00:12part of this if you think about we make decisions at councils that affect us now

00:16but they affect us 5, 10, 15 years in the future I think it's vital that we have

00:20those people in those rooms are actually going to be there for that life in 15

00:24years when I think about what does Wolverhampton need to look like these

00:27aren't buildings I'm going to live in but they're building for you know younger

00:30people than me are going to live in so having those young people in the room to

00:33understand what's going on at the moment what's contemporary and thinking how that

00:36will build the future you don't have those conversations unless you have some

00:40young people in the room

00:47at the moment I teach at Aston University I'm doing some teaching assistant work

00:51there I see people that are passionate about politics they're really passionate

00:55about politics they don't know where to join in I think part of it is that

00:58introspection thinking what's my tribe where do I fit in and joining the party

01:03and getting involved I started as the LGBT rep in Wolverhampton for the

01:07constituency for my local Labour Party and then doing the Wolverhampton wide LGBT

01:12rep for the local Labour Party and then from there you meet the people you think

01:16it was much like he said on the stage if someone says it'll be four meetings four

01:20meetings a year and you're in there five times a week every single week please get

01:24involved and actually everyone has something useful to offer the place that

01:27they're from and I think we need to really hammer down on that message

01:38it's really really huge because without events like this without the LGIU more widely but events

01:43like this are you don't have time to speak to people from other councils and you don't you

01:47don't have time to have that what's going on in London what's going on in

01:50Manchester what's going on in Liverpool these other sort of especially when you're from

01:53all the other these other local combined authorities and I think yeah we're not

01:57comparable to Manchester or Birmingham but actually what's going on in

01:59Stockport what's going on the outskirts of Liverpool there are things that we

02:03can replicate and learn from each other and so having that through the LGIU is

02:06really important

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