My name is Tony Armstrong. I have been a Town Councillor on St. Mary’s / Shafto Ward, near Woodham Academy, for four years. I had careers in teaching, social work and customer care. My wife taught infants at Vane Road School for twenty years. Both my daughters  went to Woodham Academy.
I have attended 83% of meetings at Great Aycliffe Town Council and fought to improve road safety, protest against the incinerator at Hitachi and get low cost, high speed internet into our town.
I promised in 2021 to reduce speeding traffic on the A167 dual carriageway and to reduce litter in St. Mary’s / Shafto Ward. The road was narrowed, the junction made safer, traffic lights fitted and speed reduced to 50mph. Two council and three volunteer bins have also been fitted on my ward, by me.
My other achievements include getting VIRGIN O2 into our town – Only myself and Eddy Adam out of thirty town and seven County councillors, attended the meeting to get high speed internet into our town.
I have done the ‘hands-on’ work on my ward for four years, dealing with bins, potholes, speeding traffic, off road motorbikes and quads.
For the 2025 Election:
I have six major concerns for our town and county.
1) Elderly Care Homes charging £1000+ per
week;
2) Town Centre Community Hub;
3) Copelaw 3000 cars, no school, shops or
doctors;
4) Lack of communication between County
Councillors and Town Councillors;
5) Councillors aged 85-89 fitness to stand;
6) Rise of Far Right Political Parties.
I wrote to our new Labour MP Alan Strickland five weeks ago to suggest that closed down pub hotels could quickly and cheaply be converted into Care Homes and run by the government and local authorities at 50% the cost of private Care homes.
I asked the seven County councillors for £5k each from their £20k a year budgets (totalling £560k over four years) towards a pedestrian crossing on Central Avenue.
Traffic assets at Durham refused to forecast new traffic levels with 1400 new houses at Copelaw
The Independents are by far the largest group on the Town Council, with seventeen out of thirty seats, so can win three County seats.
I have only ever seen one Conservative come to Great Aycliffe Town Council since 2021.
County Council candidates, with zero Town Council experience, going for County seats greatly concerns me, when many have never stood before.