UKIP Candidate for the Woodhouse By-election has been travelling around the local area and speaking to residents in the ward about local issues which they wish to raise.

A number of residents around the Oldale Grove area put in complaints about the green area at the top of the road near Beighton road, there were bushes sticking out over the pavements and trees arching over the roads.

UKIP Sheffield activist Wayne Harling followed up these complaints by contacting streetforce and requesting that they come out and resolve the situation. Although streetforce did come out residents were still not happy about the changes they made. We received further complaints about the same issue.

Candidate Jonathan Arnott, Councillor Pete Reeve and Councillor Christopher Cassidy travelled over to Oldale Grove, donned their gardening gloves and spent the a morning cutting down the bushes and cleaning up the rubbish from the area.

One resident said “I have lived in Sheffield all of my life and none of the other parties have done anything for the community like Jonathan did. I will be urging all of my friends and family to vote for him”.

Jonathan responded by saying that “This is the kind of UKIP Councillor I will be. One more Labour Councillor will not make a difference. Vote for me to be your Councillor and I promise there will be change”.

As a former Sheffield Magistrate and Chairman and also member of the old Sheffield Probation Liaison Committee, I am horrified at Ken Clarke and the tory betrayal of the already under-protected people of this country.

"Fewer criminals to go to prison" shrieks the headline.

This is a disaster. There is precious little alternative to be found in so-called community punishments. Our over-stretched - nay, swamped - Probation Service simply cannot offer sufficient attention to the individuals they are supervising now.

Speaking to a senior probation officer several years ago who confided to me that more than 50% of work orders are breached and from my own visits, I was never fully satisfied that these were all sufficiently rigorous in any case.

There is only one way that Mr Clarke's money-saving scheme could be implemented - and work - but sadly, it would inevitably backfire as courage to see it through would fail. All breaches must result in custody.

In those countries where alternatives are used successfully, there is an element of both fear and certainty in the offender that breaches will not be tolerated.

Consequently, with a proper system, Mr Clarke would be horrified to see prisoner numbers shoot up initially but in the longer term, it is the only way community punishments will or can work. The big rise in prison numbers would only be temporary.

Always remember that community punishments without teeth will only ever work with that minority who genuinely want to change and rebuild their lives.

UKIP Sheffield has reacted angrily to further examples of public money being wasted.  It has  been revealed that 300 NHS executives now earn more than the Prime Minister.

UKIP Sheffield Chairman Jonathan Arnott said “We are not even talking about highly-qualified medical professionals but bureaucrats who can do nothing to justify their huge salaries.

The government needs to realise that it is not spending its own money, but the money that we all pay to them in our taxes.  They should treat taxpayers’ money with far more respect than they do”

Meanwhile, the government is spending up to £40,000 a time developing new iPhone apps.  UKIP Sheffield is appalled that the government wants to spend money in this way at a time when frontline services are under threat of the government axe.

A motion by the British Medical Association calling for a complete ban on alcohol on all public transport is ‘completely unworkable and without foresight’ says UKIP Sheffield spokesman Wayne Harling.