My Story

I am married to Ian and we have two children, my maiden name is Tiernan and I lived in West Bank, Widnes until I was five.  I attended St Patrick’s nursery, St Bede’s and St Joseph’s schools in Widnes. I have spent the past 20 years running a small local family business with my husband and like many people in Widnes have also worked at ‘the GUS’.

Alongside being a Kingsway Ward & Halton Councillor since December 2014, I work as Office Manager & Senior Caseworker to Derek Twigg MP and continue to help run a small local business with my husband.

On 6th May 2021 I was elected as a Councillor in the new Highfield Ward, as a result of the government’s boundary commission re-drawing the wards across Halton and splitting up the Kingsway Ward into different wards. 

I have lived in Widnes all of my life, I love our community and our area.  I am passionate about trying to make the Highfield Ward, Widnes and Halton the very best they can be.

One of my main principles is fairness.  I believe that our society should be much fairer, that your background and where you are from should not have a detrimental impact on your life chances, that hard work should be properly rewarded.  I believe that it is our duty to look after the young, elderly and vulnerable in our community.  I believe that one day we will achieve a fairer society.

In the meantime, I try my best to try to help make things better, solve issues for people if I can and try to protect our vulnerable in whatever way I can.  I can’t always succeed but I will always try.

The work I do as a councillor is so varied that it is difficult to list it – from anti-social behaviour, litter, bollards, parking, alley gates, representing on planning issues, social care issues, housing, homelessness, to school governor, scrutiny of council policies, budgets, to name a few.  If you can think of it, I’ve usually come across it. 

My main research focus has gone into the devastating impact of changes to our Social Security system – from Bedroom Tax, changes to disability benefits, Universal Credit and the poverty that the changes are inflicting on low paid families and vulnerable people.  As a result of the work and training I’ve undertaken in this area, I have strong links to Halton CAB and I am a Widnes Foodbank Voucher Issuer.  I am fiercely against the current implementation of Universal Credit, I believe it is a terribly flawed system.

On a lighter note, in the last couple of years I have set up a community growing project charity, Widnes Growing Together.  Through this project I aim to turn unused space into community growing spots to enable people to grow cheap, healthy food for themselves.  The first site is coming along well.  I believe in all communities having nearby access to green space, in particular areas that are classed as deprived.

You can also find details of some of the council meetings that I attend on Halton Borough Council’s website.