5 April 2023

Speaking at the launch of their local election campaign in Stowmarket, the co-leaders of the Green Party said hundreds of communities were poised to elect Greens to represent them at every level of local government.

Co-leader Carla Denyer said:

“In towns and cities and villages all across the country, Greens are gaining the trust and confidence of voters. Why? Because they want something different from the status quo. They want – and we hear this again and again – people that are really listening, not taking their support for granted and going about business as usual.”

The launch was held in Mid Suffolk because the Green Party is on track to become the largest party on the council. Co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who hopes to become the next MP for Waveney Valley, said:

“Here in Mid Suffolk we are on track to make history and become the largest party on the council – an incredible feat and a credit to the fantastic councillors already working hard for the people that live here, and the candidates who will join them next month. This shift is also a credit to the residents of this county – who have asked for something different and had their request answered.”

“Greens are winning in all kinds of communities. What we’re hearing in our neighbourhoods, is that regardless of where people live or what they look like, they share our values. They’ve seen what Greens in their communities are achieving and they want more.”

The Green Party used the launch of their local election campaign to announce their Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price charter to address the housing crisis and ensure green spaces are protected.

Adrian Ramsay said: 

“Our Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter will simultaneously protect valuable green space for communities, reduce climate emissions, tackle fuel poverty and provide genuinely affordable housing.”

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5 April 2023

Greens today (Wednesday 5 April) will call for local councils across the country and the government to sign up to a new Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter to beat the housing crisis and ensure green spaces are protected. [1]

The Green Party will launch its Local Election campaign 2023 in Stowmarket, Suffolk, where easy to heat, affordable homes are out of reach for too many people. [2]

Co-leader Adrian Ramsay, Parliamentary Candidate for Waveney Valley which includes much of the Mid Suffolk district, said:

“We need councillors and national government to work together to deliver the homes people need and can afford to rent and buy, where people need them. 

“Today, speculators and developers are allowed to chase the biggest profits and ignore local needs. Too many villages and towns have seen large-scale developments take place without the community infrastructure expanded alongside, such as GP surgeries, bus services, cycling and walking networks and nurseries and schools.

“What we need is local councils supported to build quality, affordable housing in the right places where people live and work, with the right supporting infrastructure and local facilities.

“Our Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter will simultaneously protect valuable green space for communities, reduce climate emissions, tackle fuel poverty and provide genuinely affordable housing.

“We’ve seen how Green councillors have made a difference in Mid Suffolk, where developers are now expected to provide EV points, not connect to the gas grid and provide heat pumps as standard.

“The villages of Suffolk and Norfolk are facing the same problems as much of the rest of the country – developers being allowed to build houses local people often can’t afford and failing to ensure local services like buses and GP surgeries get the investment they need.

“Developers are being allowed to ride roughshod over the needs of communities and the environment and this has got to stop.”

Co-leader Carla Denyer, who is a serving councillor and Parliamentary candidate in Bristol, said:

“Up and down the country, people are experiencing the same problems as people here in Stowmarket – homes that are unaffordable to buy, unaffordable to rent and unaffordable to heat. There is a generation of people who are trapped in the private rental market by spiralling rents that bear no relationship to incomes.

“To address this, in the short term, we would introduce an immediate rent freeze and eviction ban to prevent people being made homeless in the middle of this cost of living crisis, as the Scottish Greens have already done as part of the Scottish Government. 

“In the longer term, we would give councils the power to bring in rent controls in areas where the housing market is overheated. We would also place much stricter controls on the type of new homes being built to include more affordable and social housing for buying and renting.

“Everyone deserves a place that they can call home. That is why our Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter will deliver the change we want to see across the housing sector and create fairer, greener communities.”

The Greens’ Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter would:

• End the housing crisis by creating enough affordable homes – including 100,000 new council homes a year built to the Passivhaus or equivalent standard

• Empower local authorities to bring empty homes back into use

• Transform the planning system to:

• Incentivise renovation and improvement of existing buildings to reduce the environmental impact of new construction

• Incentivise local authorities to spread small developments across their areas, where appropriate, rather than building huge new estates

• Protect valuable green space for communities

• Require new developments to be accompanied by the extra investment needed in local services, such as providing extra school and GP places and better bus services

Councillor Andy Mellen, leader of the Green councillors on Mid Suffolk District council, said: “Greens make a difference when elected. I want to see a stop to unplanned development. Instead, we need the delivery of truly affordable and sustainable homes, with the infrastructure provided so that the ‘liveability’ of our communities is improved.

“These are the practical, radical solutions that Greens across the country are offering to implement if elected on 4 May.”

Carla Denyer added:

“This year’s local elections are a crucial step for the Greens as we look to not only defend hundreds of seats across the country but continue our unprecedented growth, breaking through on to new councils and gaining control of councils where we already have representation.

“With the cost of living crisis, the climate crisis and more and more people looking for a fresh political voice, it has never been more important to get Greens elected.”

Adrian Ramsay added:

“Over the last few years, we have seen Green councillors elected in record numbers, winning seats from Labour and the Conservatives in roughly equal numbers, in rural and urban areas alike. We know that people like what they see. 

“That’s why we are fully expecting this growth to continue this year right across the country, be that in places like Lancaster and Lewes where we are already in administration, or Mid Suffolk where we could gain control of the local authority.” [3]

Notes 

1. The number of households in England is projected to rise from 23.2 million in 2018 to 26.9 million in 2043 – an average increase of around 150,000 households per year. (ONS, Household projections for England, 2018-based: Principal projection dataset, 29 June 2020). According to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ ‘English housing survey 2021–22’, 4.6 million households (19%) rent privately; 4 million households (17%) rent from a social landlord, and 65% of households in 2021–22 were owner occupiers These comprised 35% who owned their home outright and 30% with a mortgage.

2. https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/bury-st-edmunds/news/scale-of-suffolks-social-housing-problems-unveiled-9299006/ 

3. Greens currently hold 12 seats on Mid Suffolk District Council and are the second largest party, with the ruling Conservatives on 17 seats. Greens could take control of Mid Suffolk on 4th May. Much of the Mid Suffolk District is in the new Waveney Valley Parliamentary constituency where Adrian Ramsay is standing as the Parliamentary candidate. Across Suffolk as a whole Greens hold 31 seats, nearly all of which have been won from the Conservatives..

4. The Green Party currently has 563 councillors on 172 principal authority councils in England and Wales. It will be defending 281 seats in this year’s local elections in May and will be looking to make further gains across the country. 

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31 March 2023

Responding to new data from the Environment Agency which show that there was a total of 301,091 sewage discharges in 2022, Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:

“It is nothing short of a national scandal that our rivers should be treated in this way. There is simply no excuse for raw sewage to be spilled into rivers 824 times a day – especially in a year when most of the country faced a drought.

“The situation we currently have across the country where water companies can, almost with impunity, dump sewage into our rivers, waterways and coastal waters cannot go on. The Green Party wants to see a halt to all dividend payouts to shareholders until these companies sort their sewage out and ultimately for the water supply to be brought back into public ownership at the earliest practicable opportunity.

“After years of failing to invest adequately in infrastructure, the private monopoly model is broken with rivers facing an assault from all directions, made all the worse by inaction from the government.

“The water industry cannot continue to be rewarded for failure.”

ENDS

For more information or to arrange an interview contact the press office on press@greenparty.org.uk or call 0203 691 9401

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29 March 2023

Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said:

“Detaining desperate people on boats, barges and disused military bases is the latest outrage in a calculated attempt by government to dehumanise asylum seekers as part of its election strategy.

“Together with the Illegal Immigration Bill that will cast adrift thousands of people seeking protection in this country, these proposals will cause real harm to already vulnerable people.

“The humane alternative is an asylum system that works. That is one with clear, open, safe and legal routes for applicants, quick and efficient determinations and support for resettlement into local communities with properly funded local services.”

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28 March 2023

The Green Party has warned the UK government that a net zero strategy which offers a boost to fossil fuels would be a “grave betrayal” of its citizens and future generations, amid reports that its planned “green day” this week could include more support for oil and gas [1]. 

As the government prepares to announce its revamped net zero strategy on Thursday, the Greens have urged Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, to choose the policies that will bring the most benefit to households across the UK as well as to the environment.

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:

“The government this week has an opportunity to introduce measures that will create a win-win for our environment and the economy at large. 

“Instead, we are hearing reports that what should be a boost for households across the country, in the shape of cheaper, cleaner energy and a reduction in emissions, will instead be a boost for the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry.

“If what we fear is correct, this will be a grave betrayal of households up and down the country who want cheap, clean energy that doesn’t cost the earth, as well as future generations who will wonder why more wasn’t done to tackle the climate crisis when we had the opportunity to do so.”

The Greens have called on the government to:

• Introduce a carbon tax targeting the biggest polluters to provide funding for a mass insulation programme and renewable energy revolution to cut domestic energy bills and reduce emissions
• Invest £25 billion a year for ten years to carry out deep retrofitting of ten million homes and provide insulation improvements for every home that needs it. 
• Invest £12 billion a year for ten years on rolling out renewable energy including:

• Paving the way for 70% of the UK’s electricity to come from wind power by lifting the de facto onshore ban and introducing new support and incentives to accelerate wind energy development
• Introducing new support for solar geothermal, tidal, hydro and other renewables to provide much of the rest

 Ramsay said:

 “Any claim from the government that burning ever more fossil fuels from the North Sea will help the UK meet its international obligations to become net zero by 2050 [2] has no connection to reality.

 “Just last week, the latest IPCC report painted a grim picture of the future of action to tackle the climate crisis isn’t taken immediately. [2]

 “The UK government, along with governments around the world, has an increasingly small window of opportunity to secure a sustainable future for all and limit global temperature rise.

 “But with the recent announcements in the Spring Budget and reports that its own ‘green day’ has been watered down, this government continues to stick its head in the sand at everybody’s cost. 

 “There are huge benefits to be made if the government puts the right policies in place now. For example, the UK is seriously behind other European countries when it comes to installing heat pumps. However, new research has shown that we could reduce our gas imports by half if we installed them at the same rate as Finland [3]. If the government put the right long-term policy measures in place now, then we could see this sort of reward very soon.

 “The government has a chance to achieve a win-win this week, but it looks like they’re going for a lose-lose-lose which will be bad for the economy, bad for our pockets and bad for the climate.”

 Notes

1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/24/uk-government-launch-revamped-net-zero-strategy-oil-gas-capital-aberdeen

2. https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2023/03/20/green-party-response-to-ipcc-synthesis-report/

3. https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2023/gas-imports-could-be-halved-in-ten-years-if-uk-matched-finland-on-heat-pumps

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