2026 LUSU Elections: Emily Houston-Woods (Activites)

Emily Houston-Woods is the current Activities Officer.

Why are you re-running?

The main reason I'm re-running is because of the absolute love that I have for this job. It's given me so much in terms of self-confidence and personal development, but also in being able to create change for students. It's one of the most fulfilling things, talking to students and knowing that what I've done and what I've lobbied for has made a change to their time at university.

You've said that you want to increase sports and society funding and re-open society affiliations. How do you aim to achieve this, given the University and Students' Union's current financial conditions?

I know increasing society capacity is a big task, but I feel very strongly that I can do it. I've already had discussions with the new Vice-Chancellor, about how important societies are and how important it is for both the University and the Union that we can affiliate new societies, and he's very much on board. He wants sports and societies to be at the forefront of Lancaster University.

I think we've got into the current situation because societies haven't been properly valued, and so haven't been properly funded through the Union's block grant. From the discussions that I've had with the Vice-Chancellor, I'm very confident that getting the money is doable.

If the University are prepared to spend £15m on the Ruskin, for example, a few hundred thousand extra to support what is basically the life of the campus is not too much to ask.

There's been some progress this year on bringing down parking charges since the new system was introduced in the summer. What more are you hoping to achieve?

When the new system came in this year, the FTO team all worked together to reduce the cost after 6pm and create the out-of-hours parking permit. I still think there's a lot work to be done.

The price is extortionate for what it is, it's £6.20 for an entire day. If somebody needs to come onto campus for lectures every single day, that's over £30 per week. It's too expensive. We spoke to the Interim Vice-Chancellor last term about how much went to the parking company and how much to the University but, in my opinion, the University shouldn't be profiting off students coming to their university to park.

What I want to do is reduce the cost by at least half, which I think is justifiable.

You've said you want to continue work towards free Wednesday afternoons. In your manifesto last year, you said you'd push for Wednesdays to be entirely free. What's changed?

Obviously, when I ran last year, I hadn't been in this job for a year. I think, ideally, I would want the full Wednesday but I don't want to overpromise to people and not be able to deliver.

I'll still aim to free up the entirety of Wednesday, though. It's not just about sport, it supports people with part-time jobs and people who just need a break. If you can have a rest midweek, you'll have higher productivity.

Do you think that the delay of the Curriculum Transformation Programme could impact freeing up Wednesday afternoons?

Education Officer Liz Gillett and I were told that modelling was being done for CTP and it was looking optimistic that Wednesday afternoons would be free. With the recent news, this now isn't happening next year.

I'm concerned about Wednesday afternoons and CTP, but from discussions I've already had with staff and the experience I've gained from that, I'm hopeful that I will be able to deliver it next year.

Could the CTP delay impact your pledge to increase space capacity for student groups?

In terms of space, I don't think the delay will make things any worse than it is now. Since the new, consolidated modules are going ahead next year, it's going to get somewhat better in my opinion.

In general, I'm worried about space for student groups because we don't have a lot of Sports Hall space or a lot of flat floor space.

We had a discussion in Societies Committee recently. We want groups to be able to book rooms before 6pm if they're not in use, they currently can't do that. Another thing is that a lot of space on campus is block-booked, especially around the Great Hall, which controls who's using the room for basically the entire year.
The other thing we were talking about is getting it embedded in University policy that whenever campus buildings are constructed or refurbished, there should be flat floor space embedded into that.

In your manifesto, you say you want to re-negotiate the kit contract. Could you expand what you want to change?

With the kit contract, all our affiliated sports teams have to buy their kit from Akuma, our kit supplier. One of the things I did this year was a kit review, and people seem to like the playing kit. Things like hoodies and caps, though, are a lot more expensive with the kit supplier compared to alternatives.

I'd like to change the contract so that we're still using Akuma for playing kits, but teams can source their own hoodies and things like that. I'm already starting some of the discussions on this and it's something I would really hope to do next year, especially because a lot of the Sports Access Fund requests we've received this year are for kit.

What are you most proud of from your work as Activities Office so far this year?

The biggest one is the Sports Access Fund by far. At the start of the year, I got £15,000 which we gave out this year. Around 150 students benefited from this. Then, through donations through the University, we secured £146,000, which is going to be £30,000 for the next five years. I know the stress of thinking 'am I going to be able to play netball, or am I going to be able to eat this week?' To think that some students haven't had to worry about that this year really makes me happy.

Another thing is transparency. I've made Societies Committee and Sports Committee more transparent this year, and the minutes are a lot easier to read, so now people can know what's going on in them. There's also inclusion. Leah Buttery, the Wellbeing Officer, and I have done a lot of work on women's+ leadership and on trans access to sport, and I've worked with BUCS to promote access to sport for neurodivergent people like myself.

Why do you think there are fewer candidates this year, and why has the gender balance so heavily shifted towards women?

I'm honestly not sure. I am hopeful it's because more women feel empowered to run for leadership positions, but I'm not sure.

I've been thinking about the reduced number of candidates for the past few days and I'm not sure why it is. I hope that, if it becomes an issue, we can work to empower more people to run for these positions next year.

Our interviews with candidates have been edited and abridged for brevity and clarity.

If you'd like to learn more about the candidates, you can view their manifestos on the LUSU website, watch LA1TV's interviews with them, or attend Candidate Questions, held at 18:00 on Monday in LEC Lecture Theatre 1 and livestreamed on LA1TV's YouTube channel.

Voting will be open from 10:00 on Tuesday until 18:00 on Thursday.

Here is the full list of candidates for Activities Officer:

• Emily Houston-Woods
• Anna Muchardt
• Re-open Nominations