Caroline Nokes

My Experience

Tel: 01794 512132 / Fax: 01794 519247 / Romsey Conservatives, Second Floor, Romsey Working Men's Club, 13 Market Place, Romsey, SO51 8NA.

Email: caroline@romseyconservatives.co.uk /

Web: www.romseyconservatives.co.uk

Caroline is the Parliamentary Candidate for the new constituency of Romsey & Southampton North. The current UK Parliament operates on different constituency boundaries.

Caroline has lived in and around the Romsey Constituency all her life. She was born in 1972, and since then has lived predominantly in the village of West Wellow, where her parents’ family home is. Last year Caroline, her husband Marc and their daughter Tabitha moved back to Wellow, and they now live in Canada Road on the edge of the New Forest.

Caroline was educated locally, at Romsey Abbey Primary School, Romsey School and later La Sagesse Convent in the town. Like many local teenagers she sat her A Levels at Peter Symonds’ College in Winchester. She later studied politics at the University of Sussex.

For ten years from 1994-2004 Caroline worked for her father, Roy Perry, who was MEP for Wight and Hampshire South and later one of the eleven MEPs for the South East Region. It gave her a decade’s worth of experience of handling constituency issues, working with local community groups and business, and understanding exactly what is required of a busy constituency representative.

Caroline Nokes' Experience

In 1999, Caroline overturned a Liberal Democrat majority to become the then youngest member of Test Valley Borough Council, which is one of the three local authorities in the current Romsey constituency. Since then she has represented the Romsey Extra ward on the Borough Council, securing her re-election in 2003.

In 2001, Caroline was elected by her fellow Conservative Councillors to the Council’s ruling Executive, she is the Executive member with responsibility for Leisure and Culture. One of her most satisfying achievements on the Borough Council has been the work she has done to ensure that facilities for young people are improved and enhanced, and she is particularly keen on the Council’s facility for young people, the Depot, which opened in 2005. Additionally the Healthy Living Centres which have been established by the Council’s Leisure Department during Caroline’s tenure as Leisure Portfolio Holder have provided young people with drop in advice facilities, which are badly needed.

Caroline says, “too often young people are regarded as a problem, when in fact they are an opportunity. It is so vital that we provide them with facilities that they want and need and help them to make good decisions about their lifestyles.”

Caroline fought the Romsey seat in 2005 achieving a swing of 2.3% from the incumbent Liberal Democrats. It is now the most marginal LibDem held seat in the country.

Questions I have been asked