Hands-on: How Kaleel Khan will work after shock Tameside election win

KALEEL Khan may just be getting used to being a councillor after ousting Labour from arguably the safest seat on Tameside.

But he already had a plan of action drawn up should he have beaten David McNally in the local elections on Thursday, May 2.

And one of the main pillars is communicating with the people in St Peter’s ward – whatever the language.

After starting on February 1, visiting 5,000 homes twice and a social media presence that had a much deeper meaning than vanity, the independent swept home with a 348-vote majority.

Now the hard work starts – or rather continues – after the seismic shift in what was regarded as a Labour stronghold.

It will not be simply telling people what they must do, it will be a case of showing them how to do it, whatever the language.

The now Cllr Khan said: “I visited 5,000 houses twice I spoke to thousands of people. From that, my manifesto and action plan were formed. It’s about getting the community together to find solutions.

“The biggest thing is fly tipping. On every corner of the Ashton part of my ward, there’s fly tipping and a lot of it is hidden – in alleyways, on street corners. It’s not going to be on the main roads.

“The biggest thing I’ll do is hire skips and deal with the alleyways and the rat infestations. People don’t want rats in their homes.

“My challenge back to the councillors was, ‘What’s your actual role?’ What’s their role if they’re not listening to the people?

“Voters told me their councillors don’t care about them. Education starts with the councillors, it starts with the council.

“The council needs to understand those who actually live in those areas. That’s where the fight is.

“The residents say the council doesn’t understand them. It tells us our bins are equal to everyone but the public says, ‘We have different cultures here. We have diverse communities. We have 10 people living in one household. The bins aren’t enough.’

“The council says, ‘Get another bin.’ But there’ll be bins everywhere on the streets, it would be counterproductive.

“Our community also says, ‘Different languages.’ We need to speak in different languages because a lot of people have settled from eastern Europe in St Peter’s, as well as Asia.

“It’s a massively diverse community and it’s about doing workshops – and for me as a councillor to be hands-on, teaching people how to do it.

“I’m not going to pay other people to do it. I’m going to be hands-on and I’ll use my social work skills to do that.

“I know how to do it. I’ll show them how to and use the assets of the community. Volunteers, the platform I already have, the videos, the social media accounts. All of them will be used to for me to communicate with people.

“There are different ways of doing it.”

Cllr Khan’s election may be seen by some as a reaction to global issues but the very start of his campaign lay on his doorstep.

Seeing what had happened – or rather did not happen – in St Peter’s, which takes in Ashton West End and part of Audenshaw close to Guide Bridge, forced his hand.

It was not a desire to get involved in politics, far from it.

“To be honest, I’m not interested in politics,” he admitted. “What I’m interested in is doing what’s right for my community.

“Being a leader for it and tackling inequalities and tackling difference.

“In our ward, we’re being treated very differently around all the neglect that’s happened – around poor housing, poor jobs and there’s been a massive increase in mental health issues.

“I decided to stand because the community asked me to stand.

“The people who come out to vote became complacent themselves. As a result, they didn’t know there’s an alternative voice.

“I demonstrated from my campaign, which started on February 1, there is one and within three months everyone noticed the difference I was making.”

One feature of Cllr Khan’s campaign was his presence on social media with photos and videos posted regularly.

They may have made him known in the area, particularly among youngsters, but he told The Correspondent about their deeper meaning.

He continued: “Every child knows my name. Every child said to their parents, ‘Vote Kaleel Khan.’ Every child said, ‘Kaleel’s famous. I want to take a picture with him.’

“I had to do it to basically communicate to the public. Those, the videos and my social media were all about communication.

“It wasn’t about me wanting to be a celebrity and famous. There was no other way of communicating with people than showing my face and my name.”