BIO

John Hill

I'm originally from Southam in Warwickshire. My family were coal merchants, which is perhaps a little ironic considering coal's status as a climate villain. My dad was also a retained firefighter.

​

One of our main contracts was delivering animal feed from a nearby mill to this part of Derbyshire, and I often joined my dad on the lorry during holidays, so I became quite familiar with the local farms and villages, not knowing that I would move here many years later.

​

I was a bookworm from the start and fascinated by all types of science, so I did pretty well at school and went on to study at the University of Liverpool. I graduated with a 2:1 in Integrated Engineering. After graduating I took a  mechanical engineering route and followed the work to Peterborough. Later I lived in Stamford and near Lichfield.

​

I moved to Ashbourne in 2006, which is where I've finally put down roots. Since moving to the area I've worked for JCB, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Rolls Royce.

​

Being an engineer is a big part of my identity. It helped create the lens through which I see the world. One of the things that you learn as an engineer is that problems can't be ignored, because they won't go away; they will get worse unless fixed.

​

I became involved in the Green Party when I began to realise that although the work I was doing to improve efficiency and emissions of engines was useful, it would be insufficient to solve the problems we are facing.

It became clear to me that we also need political change at all levels of government. With the right policies, we can be set free to make the changes in our lives that most of us want to make – to earn our livings in ways that give us more satisfaction and deepen our involvement with our local communities, while at the same time reducing our impact on the environment, locally and globally.

​

Take one example; 2020 proved how quickly decisions can be made to make our towns more accessible to pedestrians, although none of us would have chosen it to happen for the reasons it did. We’ve also seen the value of County Council services in their response to Covid-19, whether through helping education services adapt to school closures or through social services acting to protect our most vulnerable people. However, the crisis has also exposed underinvestment and structural flaws.

The free market is great at providing us with a choice of products, but if it is adopted as an ideology it becomes clear that it is a poor fit to public service, and it has not led to the most effective spending of our money.

​

Our political system tries to place us all into 'left or 'right' groups - but this is a distinction based on outdated economic viewpoints. It blinds us to other important aspects of the world, prevents us from taking on new ideas & learning from our mistakes, and creates animosity that prevents us from finding common ground.

​

If elected I would bring skills learned in my career such as an understanding that real problems aren’t solved by idealism or grandstanding, but by recognising underlying causes and using evidence to build practical solutions.

​

I've been the membership secretary for the Derbyshire Green Party since 2019 and have previously stood for election in Ashbourne as a District Councillor.