Greens to call for ‘a boost for buses’ to breathe life into struggling communities and ease the affordability crisis. 


/ by Green Party

Green Party leader Zack Polanski on a campaign visit to Newcastle today, will say that the experiment on bus privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster, and Green councillors will fight to bring back buses into public control. 

The Greens will make bus fares free for all people under 22 years, and Zack Polanski will say that reliable and accessible public transport is one of the best tools we have at our disposal to help tackle both the cost-of-living crisis and climate crisis.  

Buses are the most used form of public transport in England, but usage has taken a huge and sustained drop recently, down from 4.6 billion journeys in 2009 to 3.6 billion in 2024.

Zack Polanski will say that,  

“Years of deregulation have led to soaring fares, unreliable services and cut routes. Bus privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster. We need to bring buses back into public control so that local councils, who know what their communities need best, can put a ceiling on how much can be charged and make sure their communities are well served.  Spiralling transport costs is one of the greatest causes of the affordability crisis and lack of services and the expense of fares affects rural communities in particular. 

“Electing Green councillors will help end this and herald in a new age of the bus, to help rebuild our struggling high streets and boost our communities.” 

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Greens announce three-step plan to boost High Streets across the country

Green Party leader Zack Polanski and newly elected Gorton and Denton MP, Hannah Spencer, will use a visit to a High Street in Manchester today to announce a three-step plan to revive High Streets that will enable local communities to reclaim them. 

The Green Party will call for: 

1.  Affordable leases for local businesses on every high street to end dominance of multinational chains and help independent traders to thrive. 

2. Using powers such as compulsory purchase orders to bring long-term empty shops back into public use to get art, leisure and music back into High Streets.  

3. Giving residents a real voice in shaping their High Streets, putting decisions in the hands of local people and making sure the money spent in the local community stays there.

Green Party spokesperson: “We want our high streets to be hubs for our communities to come together – places where small, local businesses thrive; where empty spaces are used for the benefit of the community, and where residents can have direct input into how their neighbourhoods are planned and developed.” 

Zack Polanski said:  

“Green Party Councillors would put the interests of the local community first – above a corporation’s private property rights, and will use the powers local authorities have to over empty and derelict properties and get our High Streets thriving again. Our three-step plan will keep wealth in the very communities that generate it and make high streets places that reflect local priorities. We will also extend rent controls to small shop premises, giving councils the power to prevent landlords from hiking up the price and driving out independent retailers.” 

Hannah Spencer said:  

“Our high streets can and should go back to being places that serve the needs of the communities they’re in, instead of making corporate chains even richer. Too many of our high streets are either boarded up or full of huge companies that suck money out of our local economies and pay profits to big bosses and private shareholders. Entire streets have been hollowed out, and so many places are a bad mix of boarded-up shop fronts, bookies or vape shops. This does nothing to improve the well-being of people in our communities, and it drains our local economies. We feel this so much more deeply in the North. Our three-step plan will reverse High Street decline and give us back town centres that we can be proud of.” 

END

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We deserve better: Green Party launches local election fundraiser with message for Starmer and Farage

We deserve better: Green Party launches local election fundraiser with message for Starmer and Farage

“Something big is happening. Across England and Wales people are finally saying: we deserve better”.

With those words, Zack Polanski launched the Green Party’s fundraiser for the local elections on 7 May, where the Green Party will take on the big money of Labour and Reform and look to build on recent record of winning across the country.

Hannah Spencer’s win in Gorton and Denton and Rob Yates defeat of Reform in Kent have shown that the Green Party can take on both Labour and Reform and win.

Zack’s message: now we need your help to urgently scale up for local elections in just over two weeks’ time.

Mandelson’s mates and Trump wannabees? We deserve better

As Zack said, from Manchester to Margate, people around the country are already saying ‘we deserve better’.

And if you needed any more evidence that we do, Labour and Reform have provided plenty this week.

The intrigue around Peter Mandelson’s vetting failure should not distract from this simple fact: Keir Starmer chose to appoint Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite knowing of his close relationship with notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. This is a mess entirely of Starmer’s own making and exposes the rot that runs right through Labour.

Reform meanwhile are taking their cues from another former Epstein associate: Donald Trump.

Farage’s party this week announced their own ICE-inspired plans to rip up the rights of refugees in the UK – with the intention of copying Trump’s deportation policies that have torn communities in the US apart.

The Green Party is clear: we deserve better than Mandelson’s mates in Labour and Reform’s Trump tribute act.

People power vs billionaire backers

The Green Party is standing thousands of candidates at these elections. And as Zack said: “When the community come together, the Green Party can and do win.”

We can win big in May – but we’ll need your help.

Labour and Reform are both backed by billionaires and take money from oil and gas, private healthcare, gambling and arms companies.

As Zack pointed out, that means two things: 1) They work for them – not you. And 2) they have a lot of money.

We deserve better – and that’s where you come in.

The local elections on 7 May are just two weeks away and there is still all to play for – every extra pound you can spare will help us challenge Labour and take the fight to Reform.

Donate to the Green Party and on 7 May let’s show Starmer and Farage that we deserve better.

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Greens to ‘hold government’s feet to the fire’ on ‘weakening’ link between gas and electricity prices


by Green Party

The government is set to announce a plan to weaken the link between electricity and volatile gas prices, which it says will better protect consumers from energy shocks triggered by international conflicts.

Carla Denyer MP, the Green Party’s spokesperson for Energy and Net Zero and a former offshore wind engineer, gave her reaction:

“As someone who has been calling for the price of electricity to be decoupled from high price of gas since 2022, I am so relieved to hear that the Energy Secretary is finally looking to address this.

“But this announcement deserves two cheers, not a full-throated three.

“They have been too slow to act. It is nearly two years since the election – two years in which they could have prevented a crisis like this rather than just respond to it. Households are once again paying the price.

“And the voluntary nature of the proposal raises questions in a crisis-ridden energy market where sellers have the upper hand.

“I will be holding the government’s feet to the fire to make sure they get this right; that it is delivered at speed, and bill-payers are finally able to properly reap the full benefits of clean and affordable renewable energy.”

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Green Party responds to Reform UK’s ‘ill-thought-out and cruel’ plan to deport hundreds of thousands granted asylum


/ by Green Party

Responding to Reform UK’s latest attacks on asylum seekers, deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Rachel MiIlward said:

“Another superficial, ill-thought-out and cruel announcement by Reform UK, which will fail to tackle the roots of the asylum crisis whilst making sure more suffering is heaped on the most vulnerable. 

“We do not want to see people risking their lives crossing the channel in small boats. What we need is strong international cooperation to address the reasons that people are having to seek asylum in the first place: war, poverty and the climate crisis, and to provide safe & managed routes that would offer a real alternative to people smugglers.”

“We must remember our basic humanity. Many of those seeking asylum have endured horrendous trauma. They include mothers and children. We have a duty to offer compassion and sanctuary, not insecurity, fear and intimidation.

Millward also criticised the BBC for its recent reporting on asylum issues:

“We are disappointed that in recent days the BBC, with its own reports stretching over multiple days, failed to show the challenges those genuinely claiming asylum face. Of course applications for asylum must operate under a proper legal framework, but introducing ever more restrictive rules won’t make the system more efficient. What it would do is make life even harder for the most vulnerable.”

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