The Green Party has vowed to give people “hope and action” as it launched its 2024 local election campaign with a plan to elect a record number of councillors.
Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, co-leaders of the Green Party in England and Wales, were in Bristol to launch their campaign focusing on the housing crisis with a series of policies designed to help councils increase the supply of affordable housing.
The Greens currently have the most number of councillors the party has ever had and are aiming to have even more after May 2 – hoping to make gains in the likes of Stroud, Hastings and Worcester.
In last year’s local elections, the party made significant advances, gaining 241 councillors and taking majority control of a council – Mid-Suffolk – for the first time.
Ms Denyer, who is stepping down as a councillor in Bristol to focus on her parliamentary campaign in the Bristol Central constituency, said she hoped her party would form the administration of her home city as they are currently the largest party under the soon to be axed directly-elected mayor model.
“We know there is a huge appetite for the bold progressive approach of the Greens here, like in so many other towns, cities and villages across the country,” she said.
“We go into these local elections with around 760 councillors on nearly 170 councils in both urban and rural settings.
“And Greens being a governing party in 10% of all councils in England and Wales already.”
The party is calling for more funding to help councils build homes, an end to the Right to Buy and the introduction of rent controls in places where the rental market is “overheated”.
“We have these bold ambitious plans for the NHS, for social care, for our transport, the economy, our public services at a national level, but also in our communities,” Ms Denyer said.
“Whether it’s hospitals or schools or bins or roads, the most important things that government does for us are done locally.
“We want to see a reverse in the decline of local council funding, and we will fight for the investment we need for community services.
“That’s why on May 2, we’re so pleased to be standing Green candidates in hundreds of seats across England giving people the opportunity to vote for something different for hope and for action.”
The party said at the forthcoming general election they hoped to increase their number of MPs from the current one – in Brighton Pavilion – to four by winning Bristol Central, Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.
Mr Ramsay, who is standing in the new seat of Waveney Valley, said: “All across the country, we see communities being let down by the people who are supposed to be supporting them.
“The other party is determined to turn off the tap to investment while our public services are at crisis point.
“Housing waiting lists grow and climate breakdown accelerates.
“It would be easy to feel total despair in the face of these ongoing challenges.
“But at the Green Party, we’re choosing another way, we’re offering an alternative, a change from the tired old politics that people are so sick of.
“We are offering hope and we’re offering action.”
The local elections on May 2 will see contests in 107 councils in England along with contests for 10 mayors and 35 police and crime commissioners (PCCs), while voters in Wales will elect four PCCs.