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