Positivity on the Horizon, says mayor candidate

Nothing grim about Jason Stockwood's roots as new enterprise gives Lincolnshire kids a boost

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AS he broke ground at the youth centre in Grimsby he'd helped build, Greater Lincolnshire mayoral candidate Jason Stockwood felt his emotional roots to the area take hold.

"I thought about my nan who was born in 1916, one of eight kids, growing up in poverty about 50 yards away," he says. "She couldn't have dreamed of ever having something like the Horizon Youth Zone. I thought about being able to help kids like her. But I also thought how connected I am to this place, a century later."

The technology millionaire was born on a council estate to a single mum, the third of four sons. "After the youth centre, I went to see my mum, who had early-onset dementia, to tell her about it," he says. "I took her out to the Wolds for a cup of tea. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone, we talked. And that night she died."

He pauses over his tea at Oliver's by Cleethorpes Pier. "My mum was a bit of a rubbish mum in some ways, but the youth centre is her legacy, and it's a big part of why I'm doing all this."

By "all this" Jason means running to be Greater Lincolnshire's first ever mayor as part of a new £720million devolution deal. The area includes not just Grimsby and Cleethorpes, but the cathedral city of Lincoln and the steel town of Scunthorpe, whose very lifeblood this week hangs in the balance.

Labour is currently battling to save two blast furnaces in a town that has made steel for 160 years.

"After 14 years of Tory failure, UK steel output has collapsed by 42 per cent, costing jobs and weakening our economy," Jason says. "Now the Tories are talking about nationalisation and workers' rights - but only when it's too late."

Labour is working on real solutions, he says, including "temporary public ownership".