Sian Berry won Brighton Pavilion, Ellie Chowns won North Herefordshire, Carla Denyer won Bristol Central and Adrian Ramsay won Waveney Valley.

Join the Green Party at the most exciting time in our history.

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Carla Charles and Birmingham Green Party campaigning to send a message on cuts to local services

Carla Charles has been selected as the Green Party’s candidate for the upcoming Bournbrook and Selly Park by-election.

Carla is an arts educator and runs a local non-profit arts space. She lives locally with her husband and daughter.

Carla wants to campaign to save local spaces and services from planned City Council cuts.

Carla says: “As someone who works to make arts accessible to all, and as a mother myself, I know just how valuable our community spaces and local services are to people.”

“I want to campaign to save as many of our services as possible, and send a message to our Labour-run Council and the Tory Government these cuts to local services is completely outrageous. Voting Green at this by-election is a way of sending that message and holding our Labour-run Council to account.”

“It’s utterly devastating that so many local services like our libraries are under threat. People across this city will potentially lose so many vital services through no fault of their own.”

“I am motivated from having worked with our existing Green Party councillors in standing up for residents and the services residents rely on. I know they have been at the forefront of highlighting the impact of these cruel cuts, with Julien Pritchard reading out letters from young people asking the council not to close their youth centre at the Budget Meeting of the City Council.”

Vote for Carla Charles, Birmingham Green Party candidate for the Bournbrook and Selly Oak ward for Birmingham City Council on Thursday 2 May.

The post Carla Charles selected as the Green Party’s candidate for the Bournbrook and Selly Park by-election appeared first on Birmingham Green Party.

Birmingham’s Green Party councillors are now calling on the Labour-run Council to be bolder in their plans to tackle the climate and take thousands more out of fuel poverty.

The Green Party say the council needs more ambitious plans to insulate more existing properties to a higher energy standard and to build zero carbon homes.

Green Party Group Leader Councillor Julien Pritchard said: “While this bid to government is welcome, and insulating a small number of existing council properties to a C rating is better than nothing, the truth is it barely scratches the surface of what’s needed to make Birmingham’s homes warmer and greener.”

“The Labour-run Council needs to be much bolder and more creative. Birmingham Green Party wants to see a zero carbon housing plan that:”

• retrofits all council properties to the highest possible energy efficiency standard”
• ensures all new council houses are built to the passivhaus standard”
• supports private renters and homeowners to retrofit their homes”
• The small projects the Council have planned so far are welcome, but they don’t go far enough.

“We need to see change at scale and fast. Doing this at scale will also bring costs down.”

“A variety of funding models exist to make this an affordable and positive for councils, homeowners and tenants alike.”

“Too many residents in Birmingham, like many in my own ward, are having to choose between eating and heating. And the climate emergency can’t wait.”

Notes:

Passivhaus is a model with over 30 years of success in delivering net-zero housing that require very little energy for heating or cooling.

Meanwhile the Dutch Energiesprong initiative uses prefabricated kits to radically improve the efficiency of existing homes.

The post Green Party calls on Council to go much further on greener homes appeared first on Birmingham Green Party.

Having one Green in the council chamber has made a real difference. Cllr Julien Pritchard has been there, making the arguments on local services, tenants’ rights and the climate emergency for the past 4 years. It’s time to give him some company!

Imagine the difference we can make with more councillors.

As proud as we are of our achievement, we know that we can do much, much more. We don’t have wealthy corporate donors to finance our campaigns, unlike some other parties.

We’re truly grassroots, so to make change possible we have to work together. Even small donations help us to reach more voters, letting them know that there is an alternative.

Please give what you can and get behind our candidates.

P.S. Because we’re a political party

• Please note all donations will go to Birmingham Green Party to help our campaigns to get more Greens elected to Birmingham City Council.
• We’re required to run permissibility checks on donations over £500. These will be completed as pledges are made. For the same reason, we cannot accept anonymous donations over £500.
• If you make multiple donations to us, they may be aggregated for our reporting purposes.
• Your details will appear in our election returns if valued over £500, and if you donate over £7500 your identity will appear on the Electoral Commission website.

Produced and promoted by Margaret Okole on behalf of Birmingham Green Party at 21 South Road, B18 5NA.

The Target – £1000

Your donation could help us to deliver the most professional campaign we’ve ever run. To hit our target, we only need:

100 people to donate £10

50 people to donate £20

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10 people to donate £100

Donate on the Crowdfunder site.

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As a businesswoman and community activist, Siobhan has over 20 years’ experience of forging partnerships and supporting community organisations to secure vital funds for local projects in Birmingham.

“My entire career has been about supporting communities of space and place to flourish.

My offer is simple, I will put the needs of Erdington residents first and work tirelessly to get things done.

I know the power of one voice, but when we work together, amazing things happen.

I joined the Green Party because it epitomises my ideals and my values. It’s time for change. We all deserve so much better.”

For the past year Siobhan has been volunteering in Erdington, listening to residents, getting things fixed, litter-picking and during lockdown, delivering hot food to the elderly.

Siobhan is a “can do” activist. That’s why the party has nominated her as candidate for Erdington.

Promoted and published by Margaret Okole on behalf of Siobhan Harper-Nunes (Green Party), both at 21 South Road, Birmingham B18 5NA

The post Green Party announce candidate for Erdington by-election appeared first on Birmingham Green Party.

To become a truly clean and green city, as Birmingham City Council’s marketing material proclaims, we need a radical overhaul of the way waste is managed in the city. Almost no progress has been made in the last decade. Birmingham recycled 24% of waste in 2014, so the rate has actually dropped since then!

The first measure that needs to be taken is to abandon incineration. The Tyseley Incinerator is swallowing up over two thirds of all the waste in Birmingham and is the biggest single contributor to CO2 emissions in the city. Until we close this dirty, outdated burner down we will never reach the goal of 70% of waste being recycled, or get the city’s CO2 emissions down to net zero.

All of the top performing local authorities in the country do well because of their food waste and green waste collections. Birmingham City Council, on the other hand, has tried to focus its efforts on encouraging behaviour change, in the hope that people will waste less food. However, it is obvious that this approach is not working. In 2015, it was reported that at least 41% of the contents of Birmingham residents’ general waste is food waste. 

Bristol is the best performing of England’s large cities, but even they found that food waste still made up nearly 25% of their general waste. They launched a campaign to deal with this which worked so well that there was a 10% drop in the volume of general waste collected and a 16% increase in the amount of food waste being collected separately. This food waste goes into an anaerobic digester, which means more clean energy being produced as well as lower overall CO2 emissions. 

Birmingham City Council urgently needs to invest in setting up similar systems to Bristol instead of continuing with incineration. A network of anaerobic digesters* and a pyrolysis plant* would ensure far better outcomes for the city. Such transformational measures must be taken as soon as possible, so that Birmingham becomes a leader on the journey towards zero waste. 

What do we propose?

• Adopt a circular economy waste policy – we should be promoting community sharing, reuse and recycling across the city.
• Bring in community engagement and information campaigns to explain the aims of a new waste strategy and motivate people to recycle more. If people understand which items they can separate for recycling, what happens to their waste and why it is important they are much more likely to do it. 
• Introduce weekly food waste collections as a matter of priority, rather than the waiting for the government to force the council to take action.
• Invest in anaerobic digestion, in-vessel composting* and pyrolysis plants.
• Look for ways to increase the range of items that can be collected for recycling from people’s homes.
• Currently the council pays very high ‘gate fees’ for all the waste burnt in the incinerator. If we stop burning waste this money could be reallocated to pay for new, improved doorstep collection systems.

* An anaerobic digester is an industrial system that supports a natural process to treat waste, produce biogas that can be used to power electricity generators, provide heat and produce soil improving material. It is similar to composting, in that microorganisms break down organic matter, but without oxygen.

* Pyrolysis is an industrial system that can process biomass, municipal solid waste, waste plastic, waste rubber (tire), industrial waste, agricultural waste, and other organic solid waste. This waste can be converted into fuel and chemical products in a closed environment without oxygen, so that they are easy to store and transport. This means that there are very low carbon emissions involved.

* With In-Vessel Composting (IVC) garden and food waste are collected and composted together in one container. This would also enable the council to bring in free garden waste collections (for which there is currently a fee) which would increase the overall popularity of the scheme. 

The post How can we really be a clean and green city? appeared first on Birmingham Green Party.

Birmingham Green Party says the CAZ is an exercise in tackling air pollution sooner rather than later.

Councillor Julien Pritchard says: “Years of inaction on air pollution in Birmingham have put the council in a position where it is legally obliged to put some measures in place. The CAZ is its first attempt. But we have known for years that there are many parts of the city which break legal limits for air pollution, with damaging effects especially on children living in those areas. We urge Birmingham City Council to remember that air pollution is a problem for the whole city, not just the centre. We need action to tackle it across the city, because everyone needs clean air.”

The Green Party believes we need close monitoring of the effectiveness of the CAZ, to find out how much it reduces air pollution within the zone and whether air pollution is just shifted into other areas.

We urge Birmingham City Council to remember that air pollution is a problem for the whole city not just the city centre. We need action to tackle it across the city, because everyone deserves clean air.

The post Action on air pollution in Birmingham is long overdue appeared first on Birmingham Green Party.

Birmingham Green Party is strongly opposed to any extension of the contract to keep the Tyseley incinerator going beyond the current end date of 2024. Our city needs to be leading the green revolution and topping the recycling league, not languishing shamefully at the bottom.

Green Party councillor Julien Pritchard recently told local media why renewing the contract is such a bad idea; “Councils are likely to be forced to provide a food waste collection by government, which will massively reduce the amount of rubbish going to an incinerator. 

It also undermines the work of the climate emergency task force by starting to look for a new contract before the climate action plan is developed. What’s most disappointing is that instead of using the current crisis to pause and think again, the council seems to be ploughing ahead with this process behind closed doors. Birmingham City Council needs to be looking to the future, not re-procuring for the technologies of the past.” 

Why are incinerators bad?

• The release of CO₂ from incinerators makes climate change worse and comes with a cost to society that is not paid by those incinerating the waste
• The ‘carbon intensity’ of energy produced through waste incineration is more than 23 times greater than that for low carbon sources such as wind and solar. This means that in no way can incineration be considered a low carbon technology.
• Composition analysis indicates that much of what is currently used as incinerator feedstock could be recycled or composted. If this was done, it would result in carbon savings and other environmental benefits.
• Incineration comes with a significant ‘opportunity cost’, because the need to supply waste for it removes the incentive to develop other businesses based around reuse and recycling.

What do we propose?

• Adopt a circular economy waste policy – we should be promoting community sharing, reuse and recycling across the city.
• We need community engagement and an information campaign which will explain the aims of a new waste strategy and motivate people to recycle more. If they do not understand what items they are supposed to separate for recycling, why, and what happens to their waste, they are less likely to do it. 
• Introduce weekly food waste collections as a matter of priority, before the government forces the council to do so.
• Look for ways to increase the range of items that can be collected for recycling from people’s homes.
• Currently the council pays very high “gate fees” for all the waste burnt in the incinerator. This money can be reallocated to pay for new, improved doorstep collection systems once we stop burning waste.

Sign the Birmingham Friends of the Earth petition: replace incineration with better options.

The post Will the council’s climate plan ambitions go up in smoke? appeared first on Birmingham Green Party.