Green Party make further gains in local elections

Locally we had a good series of results in the four wards in which we stood, coming second in Gowy from nowhere. We still have a lot of work to do and we need to build up a stronger local campaigning party.

In the wider North West, Hilary Robinson was elected to Alsager Town Council; our first Green Councillor in Cheshire, and John Coyne retained his seat in Liverpool which had seemed vulnerable to a resurgent Labour. In Lancaster we had a disappointing result losing 4 councillors to Labour who had a good result in the north of England - totally underserved given the cuts they had planned in public services and the privatisation of the NHS which they had already started upon before the general election last year.

Nationally, we went into our election campaign with 116 councillors on 42 councils and have come out of it with 130 on 43 councils, a gain of 14 seats.

Norwich fought off Labour in two wards, as well as gaining an additional seat in Thorpe Hamlet, to bring their total seats on the council to 15 - adding to its tally of city councillors at every election since 2002. We also gained seats in Bolsover, Bristol, Herefordshire, Kings Lynn and West Norfolk, Malvern Hills, Mid Suffolk, Reigate, Solihull, South Hams, Stafford and St Albans! The outstanding Brighton results were also a real highlight: we gained 10 more seats, taking our total to 23 and making the Greens the largest party on the council.

Greens fighting hard in West Cheshire elections

Members of the Green Party in Cheshire West and Chester have been working hard in our target wards of Gowy and Davenham and Moulton. We have been busy talking to voters and delivering election flyers over the past week and the weather has been very kind to us. By the 5th of May we will have delivered over 7500 flyers in the two wards.

Our campaign is focussed on fighting the cuts imposed in Cheshire by the Coalition government. George Osborne's £81 Billion cuts package is totally unjustified and genuine threat to the welfare state which will cause suffering to the weakest members of our society, including the poor, disabled and unemployed.

We have seen the effect that cuts have had in Ireland where the economy has been devastated. You can't cut your way out of a recession - that is what happened in the 1930s and it lead to a decade of economic stagnation and conflict which cost millions of lives.

The Green Party has a fully costed economic programme which will protect public services and create jobs, lifting us out of economic stagnation and building a future for a sustainable economy which will help us deal with the consequences of climate change. A couple of Green councillors in West Cheshire would make all the difference - wherever you are vote Green on 5th May!