Jason Zadrozny

Cllr Jason Zadrozny
Leader of Ashfield District Council
Ashfield Independents Group Leader on Ashfield District Council
Councillor for Ashfield District Council
Ward	Larwood
Personal details
Political party	Ashfield Independents

Jason Bernard Zadrozny (born 20 July 1980) is a British politician from the Ashfield Independent Party. He was first elected to Nottinghamshire County Council and Ashfield District Council in 2007.

On 22nd March 2007 he won the Sutton-in-Ashfield North by-election to Nottinghamshire County Council with a 44% swing and 60% increase of the vote share.

In May 2007 he won a seat on Ashfield District Council. He was elected the Leader of the Council that month becoming the youngest Council Leader in the UK at that time, aged 26. This was the first time The Labour Party had lost the Leadership of the Council since the Authority was created in 1974.

Early life

Zadrozny was born in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire and is of Polish descent with both grandfathers relocating to Nottinghamshire to work in local collieries after the end of the Second World War. He grew up in Kirkby-in-Ashfield attending Greenwood Primary School then Ashfield Comprehensive School. His father worked at Charcon Tunnels; the local concrete plant and later in the finance industry. Hi mother worked in textiles and retrained to work in education as classroom support.

Zadrozny attended West Nottinghamshire College where he completed a BTeC National Diploma in Performance Art. He then obtained a Higher National Diploma in Theatre Studies from the college in 2002.

Career Before Politics

While at college Zadrozny wrote, directed and produced several plays and theatre productions. Most notably a school’s tour of Midsummer Night’s Dream and the staging of his own play, Babcia. Zadrozny also did background work in television during this period with uncredited appearances in Kiss Me Kate for the BBC, Crossroads, Peak Practise and Barbara for Carlton.

After leaving college Zadrozny worked for Kingfisher as a co-ordinator in their Ashfield B&Q Warehouse. He taught youth theatre in the evenings at the Pleasley Landmark Centre.

In 2004 Zadrozny took over as the Manager of the Pleasley Landmark Centre, a community and business resource centre. In 2006 Zadrozny left that role to take on the job of Constituency Organiser for Paul Holmes, Member of Parliament for Chesterfield. A job he ceased in May 2007 once elected Leader of Ashfield District Council.

Political Career

Zadrozny was Leader of Ashfield District Council from May 2007 until May 2009. He was election for the Sutton-in-Ashfield North ward to both the District Council and Nottinghamshire County Council as a Liberal Democrat. While in control of the Council, Zadrozny helped pioneer Community Asset Transfers of two local buildings. The Acacia Centre in Annesley and the Manor Rooms in Teversal Village. He launched a Neighbourhood Charter of environmental pledges, created a new Community Protection Officers services and opened a new leisure centre in Sutton-in-Ashfield – The Lammas.

In May 2009 Labour, Independents and Conservatives came together to oust the Liberal Democrats, with Labour taking back leadership of the Authority. In June 2009 Zadrozny held his County Council seat. He was re-elected to Ashfield District in 2011 and to the County Council again in 2013.

In 2015 Zadrozny left the Liberal Democrats and was elected as an Independent for a newly created ward, Larwood. In November that year he formed the Ashfield Independents Party.

In 2017 he was elected to Nottinghamshire County Council for the new Ashfields Division as an Ashfield Independent. His party fielded five candidates in that election and won all five.

In 2017, he ran the Hucknall North by-election where his party gained the seat from Conservative MP for Mansfield, Ben Bradley

He followed this success in the Sutton Junction and Harlow Wood by-election in December 2018 where his party romped home, gaining the seat with 82% of the vote.

In 2018 Zadrozny was once again elected Leader of Ashfield District Council after the ruling Labour Party lost eight Councillors through highly publicised in-fighting. His flag ship policies of a new leisure centre with swimming pools for Kirkby-in-Ashfield , restoration of the town clock and community spring clean events saw his party win outright control in the May 2019 Ashfield District Council election, taking 30 of the 35 seats available. The Ashfield Independents even won the Borough Council seat of Brinsley in neighbouring Authority, Broxtowe.

In July 2019 Zadrozny declared his intention to stand for election to Parliament for the Ashfield Constituency, after an unsuccessful attempt once before in 2010.

In that election Zadrozny lost out to Labour’s Gloria de Piero by just 192 out of 48,196 votes cast making it one of the closest results in the UK and the second biggest swing of the 2010 General Election.

Two weeks after Zadrozny declared his intention to stand, De Piero announced she would not seek re-election, citing irrecoverable differences with her Party Leadership.

Zadrozny voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in the 2016 membership referendum and has publicly advocated leaving the EU as soon as possible.

Personal Life

Zadrozny is single and still lives in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in a house next door to where his grandparents lived for over 50 years.

In 2015 he was arrested and charged historic child sex offences. Three years later the case was dropped after the Crown Prosecution presented no evidence in the trial. The 900 days case was reported in the national press as a miscarriage of justice along with a Speight of other high-profile false allegations. Zadrozny was fully acquitted with no case to answer.