West Yorkshire mayor candidate: Stewart Golton

The Liberal Democrat West Yorkshire mayor candidate Stewart Golton

Stewart Golton was born and educated in Leeds.

The Liberal Democrat candidate said he was raised for a significant part of his childhood by his grandparents whilst his father was in prison and his mother looked after his older siblings.

He received a scholarship to Leeds Grammar School and studied politics at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

He worked overseas in Spain in the travel industry and worked for British Gas.

He is now a councillor and leads the Liberal Democrat group on Leeds City Council.

He wants decisions that affect the region to be taken here

Mr Golton would like to see more decisions about how the region grows and develops being taken by those directly affected in West Yorkshire.

He said the county's infrastructure does not match the needs of a modern economy as "a result of indifference from successive Westminster governments".

The candidate said he wanted to see "consistent, properly devolved budgets" to ensure long-term planning to create "create economic growth that creates wealth that stays here rather than ending up in London".

He wants transport improvements across the county

He said bus companies have been "let off the hook" for poor performance for too long.

Mr Golton said he would ensure bus operators have to earn any money they receive in subsidy, by insisting on performance targets.

He said he also would work with councils to produce transport plans for every ward in West Yorkshire.

This would, he said, ensure that the new mass transit system, franchised buses, and new transport investment is more evenly spread "to reflect the needs of everybody, not just those commuting into Leeds and other city centres".

More money for police must mean visible results, he says

Mr Golton believes neighbourhood policing teams have been "cut to the bone" and this affects their ability to respond to anti-social behaviour and property crime.

He said it was not acceptable to keep charging above inflation rises to the police precept each year without offering "an appreciable improvement to safety on our streets".

The candidate said he would work closely with partners in the courts and prison service to improve areas of concern which impact public safety.

Those include making sure serious offenders are not offered bail instead of remand because of overcrowded prisons, community sentences are completed in full and that ex-offenders are supported to reduce the risk of further offending.

Build homes where they are needed not just big estates, he says

The contribution of housing is key to tackling the climate crisis, Mr Golton said.

His focus would be on enabling the retrofit of current properties with environmental measures.

He would also enable smaller housing developers to deliver more affordable and sustainable homes where they are needed rather than "relying in the big national volume developers to deliver massive estates reliant on car use where it is cheapest for them to build".

He said a reliable public transport network was needed so people have other options rather than using a car for commuting.

In his own words