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Southampton Independents was originally formed as a campaigning group of residents, formed by residents in 2017. And it wasn't like the big political parties.
For a few years, in order to contest 2018 City Council and 2017 Parliamentary elections for Southampton people, Southampton Independents was a registered political party. Political parties are regulated by the Electoral Commission.
It was definitely not with Labour, the Tories, the Greens, Reform UK or the Lib Dems. We were independent of party politics at Westminster, and still are. Our focus is Southampton.
Southampton Independents has campaigned, investigated and reported on the issues that matter to Southampton residents. The organisation itself and this website has mostly been led by its co-founder Andrew Pope, working with other local residents, businesses and organisations to campaign and investigate.
Southampton Independents has proved that we help residents to stand up by standing up for local residents and with local residents, to help them to help themselves.
We have won campaigns in Southampton. We have won campaigns for Southampton. We have won campaigns with Southampton.
We have campaigned on a wide range of local issues, listening and acting on local residents' concerns, including:
- preventing charging vehicle users in a Clean Air Zone for Southampton by calling for a Referendum on any such scheme. The scheme was then scrapped, in contrast to other parts of the country including London and Bristol. Southampton Independents protected our City's residents and businesses.
- exposing appalling failures in tower block fire safety before and after the Redbridge Towers fire and the Grenfell Tower tragedy, forcing the City Council to install sprinklers and improve fire safety in the Council tower blocks
- successfully killing off the failed Solent Devolution Deal and Labour and Conservative plans for an Elected Mayor, by working cross-party and with other independent colleagues across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
- exposing and killing the wrong plans for housing development and re-generation by the City Council, by listening and acting with residents
- exposing the misuse of City Council finances and corruption including the tens of millions of pounds of public money spent on the Council's Arts Complex, getting the issue on the agenda of the City Council elections and front page of the Daily Echo
- winning a seven year campaign to get Safe Standing installed at Southampton FC's St. Mary's Stadium for the 2024-25 Season, despite fierce resistance from former directors and chairmen of the Football Club and unwarranted criticism from a minority of fans
You can see more proof of our of our commitment to Southampton by looking through the evidence of our work on this website. You can click the links above and use the Search facility at the top or side of the website, depending on whether you are using a desktop or phone browser.
Do you have a story for us?
Do you have a request for an explainer article?
Get in touch to tell us what you are concerned about, or what you are happy about, in the City of Southampton - north, south, east or west, of the real capital of Hampshire.
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