'I'm voting for you, I hope you can sort my side entry out.'
This promise - and the humble request that comes with it - is aimed in Alan Gibbons' direction by a passing woman as he pounds the streets he has called home for the past three decades. Originally from Warrington, Alan - or Cllr Gibbons - has lived in the Orrell Park area of north Liverpool since 1994 with his wife Pauline.
It's a compact community of well-kept terraced houses that were predominantly built for workers in the nearby Bootle Docks during its rapid expansion in the mid-19th Century. Formed on a raised hillock, Orrell Park rises up above the nearby Walton Prison on one side and the border with Sefton on the other.
It's clear that people here care about this place. Many have lived here all their lives.
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A retired teacher and published children's author with grown up children, Cllr Gibbons first stood to be a councillor in 2021 having been inspired by Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. He was elected as one of three councillors in the current Warbreck ward, which includes the northern parts of Walton and Orrell Park areas.
But as he prepares to seek election again in a couple of weeks, a lot has changed for the 70-year-old and for the place he calls home.
First and foremost, he is no longer a member of the Labour Party. He was kicked out last year for showing support for a newly proscribed left wing group, having already been suspended for his role in forming the Liverpool Community Independents group on Liverpool City Council.
The group was originally created as Cllr Gibbons and four other former Labour councillors broke ranks to defy the Labour whip at a crunch city council meeting and vote against the party's budget plans. They joined three other councillors who had previously left the party to form the new grouping on the council.
Fast forward to today and the group has lost a couple of members, including its leader Anna Rothery, suspended by the rest of the group after being named in the ECHO's parking fines investigation. This leaves Cllr Gibbons as the de facto group leader heading into Liverpool's local elections on May 4, where they will stand a total of nine independent candidates.
History shows that getting elected as an independent in any election is incredibly difficult. It is impossible for an individual to match the resources of the established parties and their well drilled ground games.
But most political observers - including those of a Labour persuasion - would admit that Cllr Gibbons has a decent chance of knocking the ruling party out in Orrell Park for a variety of reasons.
First of all, the ward Cllr Gibbons is standing in is now called Orrell Park and has a much smaller population than the current ward he represents - with roughly 4,300 people living in the roads surrounding the station. This much smaller ward, which will elect just one councillor in May, has been formed as part of a dramatic redrawing of Liverpool's electoral map.
That new ward map is one of a number of reforms that have come about as a direct consequence of the 2021 Max Caller government inspection report which revealed a harrowing picture of failures and waste at Liverpool City Council.
In his recommendations, Mr Caller said smaller council wards with just one elected representative would mean more accountable politicians who are responsible to fewer residents. In Orrell Park, a smaller ward could mean good news for Cllr Gibbons.
"The ward is about 2,300 homes in total," he explains as we join him on the campaign trail, "It's much more possible for me to get around and speak to everyone."
And get around he has. The sea of Alan Gibbons posters adorning windows and doors in the properties around this compact community suggests the 70-year-old is making plenty of headway in his bid to upset the odds and beat Labour to the seat.
To do that, he will have to rely on a combination of name recognition, local issues and an anti-Labour sentiment from those fed up with negative stories coming out of the city council in recent years.
Behind one door in Chatsworth Avenue, a resident called Barbara is exactly the sort of voter Cllr Gibbons hopes - and needs - to win around if he is to be elected.
"I used to vote Labour but I haven't since it all kicked off at the council," she says, referring to the aforementioned Caller Report and arrival of government commissioners. The recent parking ticket scandal exposed by the ECHO hasn't helped, "that was dreadful," she adds.
Barbara says she and her family members all intend to vote for Cllr Gibbons. "He's always out and about," she adds, "he seems to care about the local area. This is a nice area but it needs some some care."
On nearby Victoria Drive Cllr Gibbons appears to secure another vote as he promises to sort out a local resident's side entry, which she says has been neglected for years. He promises to go and visit the next morning.
If he is to upset the odds and win this seat on May 4, he will be relying on a potent combination of anti-Labour and Liverpool Council sentiment and these more mundane local issues like bins, potholes and you guessed it, neglected entries.
But he knows that for many across north Liverpool, regardless of what has gone on, voting Labour is in the blood. That's why aside from a Liberal pocket in Tuebrook and a couple of ex-Labour independents - the north of the city's council seats are a sea of red.
Cllr Gibbons says that while he has left the party he once loved, he believes he retains the values on which it was first formed.
"With most people, what I am actually saying is I still have Labour socialist values, these are the values inculcated by my gran when she said never let the NHS go," he explains. "That's what makes me a socialist."
"I tell them that I will be voting for (Labour Walton MP) Dan Carden in the General Election but locally this council is not implementing those values, it isn't being open and transparent or getting the best value for money. The waste has been cataclysmic."
He describes most people in the local area as 'disappointed Labour' and accepts that this disappointment won't be enough to stop some from voting the way they always have - but he believes some have now had enough.
"It's been like tumbling dice of failure at the council. Alleged corruption and dodgy deals are coming up a lot on the doorstep. People think this council has just put its foot in it too many times for it to be turning things around.
"We need to see fundamental change within the council and I don't feel that confidence, there is still an open question about whether things are improving."
When he stands on May 4, Cllr Gibbons will be up against candidates from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. An informal pact with other independent groups and smaller parties mean this is a four-way race - but most will feel there are principally two horses vying for first place.
For their part, Labour will not want to lose a seat in its northern city heartlands. A couple of weeks ago the party flooded Orrell Park with councillors and members in a pre-arranged campaign blitz. There are likely to be more of those to come in the weeks before May 4.
Labour's candidate in Orrell Park is Mumin Khan, known for his work in the city with the Abdulla Quilliam Society, accused Cllr Gibbons and his community independents team of 'posturing' and said his party, under the new leadership of Cllr Liam Robinson is the only realistic option.
He said: "Under the leadership of Liam Robinson, Liverpool Labour has an ambitious new agenda that will revitalise our city, after more than a decade of Tory austerity.
"Our focus is on jobs, investment and delivering high quality public services and homes for our people. The Independents talk the game, but they have no plan or strategy – they just oppose and talk down the city.
"It’s all rhetoric and posturing. We're focused on getting on with the job and making Liverpool a great place for everyone."
While other smaller parties like the Liberals and Greens have chosen not to stand in the ward, potentially as part of an informal pact aimed at unseating Labour candidates, the Liberal Democrats do have an Orrell Park candidate in the shape of Collette McAlister.
Like Cllr Gibbons, she will be pushing the anti-Labour message including the parking ticket scandal. She said: "There is no doubt that the key subject for discussion on the streets of Orrell Park Ward is the corruption of the council. People are incensed at the way that 14 Labour Councillors used a back door method to avoid paying parking fines with the biggest culprit being a current councillor for the ward Ann O'Byrne.
"People's concerns are much wider than this but it is seen as the exemplar of the problems which have trashed Liverpool's reputation and ruined the council's finance. Last year we lost the old Warbreck ward by just 38 votes and given the way that the two 'Labour' Parties are fighting each other we are optimistic about coming through the middle to win."
Making up the candidates list will be Mark Butchard, a 60-year-old management consultant who was born in the ward and has lived here for the past 20 years. He has what he admits is the tricky task of knocking on doors for the Conservatives.
"It can be hard being a Conservative candidate in Liverpool, we do get a bit of aggression, but I am a local candidate, I love Liverpool and I have lived in this area for a long time. I want to give people at least the option of voting Conservative - I want this area to be successful."
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