Name Kevin Illingworth (I’m Kevin not to be confused with Kevan Shaw, he’s the candidate with a beard)
Political Party – Independent
Ward – City Centre
What’s your story?
As the saying goes I wouldn’t vote for any party that would have me as a member. My background is in IT, where I worked in different sectors including local government, the NHS and banking. When I worked for banks they did actually make a profit.
I started working on and off in Edinburgh in 1995 and I moved here for good in 2005. I had lived on a small holding which grew most of our own food which was great fun but it was also hard work being a turnip farmer. I still grow things in my garden here, especially strawberries.
At university I studied Chemical Engineering, which has a lot of practical uses such as a proficiency in home brewing.
There are two main ideas which I want to get across: firstly I want to open an industrial sized version of the Repair Shop. If you have bulky items to get rid of we would have a free, next day pick up, so no more leaving furniture next to bins to get ruined by the weather. We would have a team to assess, repair, refurbish or recycle these items. Items would then be sold on at reasonable prices. This solves the problem of fly tipping and it also creates jobs and generates income.
I’ve not heard much about job creation during this election.
Secondly I want us to rethink August in Edinburgh. You wouldn’t hold the Olympics and the World Cup in the same place at the same time so why do we do it? Moving one of the festivals to July would at least overlap the school holidays. There are plenty of venues across the city that could be used instead of cramming everyone into the city centre.
This would spread the income out into areas that currently get no benefit from the festivals.
One thing people don’t realise about me is I am part West African and I would really like to go to Cabo Verde and track down my distant cousins.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
