The Green Party isn’t realistically going to get into power in Southwark, one of its council candidates has said – but you should elect them as councillors because they will push Labour to tackle the climate crisis.
Claire Sheppard, who is standing in Nunhead and Queen’s Road, criticised Labour, who have been in control of the council since 2010, for not being clear enough on how it will get to carbon neutral by 2030.
“We’d have measurable targets – we’re pragmatic about it,” she said. I don’t think it will be a shock to anyone if I say that I don’t think the Greens are going to become the majority group in the council.”
Labour has been slammed by various local climate-focused groups like Southwark Extinction Rebellion for its climate action plan – which has also been ranked second out of all the London boroughs.
“It is quite a lot of greenwashing,” Ms Sheppard said. Referring to Southwark’s second-placed ranking, she went on: “They’re trumpeting the fact that they’ve got the second-best policy, but that’s kind of like when I was playing Monopoly with my sisters, you came second in a beauty contest, we always used to go ‘well who came first, a walrus?’”
- READ MORE: – The Race is on! How things currently stand – click below
Southwark elections special 2022: one week to go until voters head to the polls
“Trickle-down economics is a myth and we’ve seen that over the pandemic. The gap between the richer and the poorer is getting wider, and the rich are getting richer… off people’s misery, while the people at the bottom are struggling to pay their bills. You’ve got Elon Musk spending £45 billion on Twitter. And I think people are starting to see through that and that’s a really key plank in our approach.”
A major aspect of this is housing, Ms Sheppard said. As someone who grew up in a council home, she said she knows “what a difference having safe, secure, affordable housing can make when you’re on a low income. It can completely change your world.”
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She criticised the Labour council for adopting a “top-down” approach, not being in touch enough with local residents and working too closely with private developers. “This is their approach to regeneration, but it doesn’t look like regeneration to me.”
Labour councillors say that they always listen to residents’ views, and have pointed to the estate regeneration ballots on the Tustin and Ledbury Estates as examples of effective consultation.
“My day job, my business that I’ve been running for the past decade… is actually market research and so I know a lot about questionnaire writing and I know a lot about how you write a leading question. And I’ve never seen a single fair consultation from Southwark Council.”
“I’m a leaseholder in a council block myself, I’ve been through two rounds of major works, I’ve heard the spin… it’s not true. All too often it feels like the council have made a decision and they’ve made that consultation work to get that decision through.We need to really fight that kind of thing.”
Although she and her Green colleagues won’t gain control of Tooley Street this year, Ms Sheppard said her personal aim was to be an excellent local councillor.
“I’ve lived here for over twenty years, I’ve run community choirs, I’ve done fundraisers, I’m ludicrously passionate about the place I live. I love Peckham, I love Nunhead. It’s the best place to live on Earth and I think our Labour candidates take our votes for granted. And so do an awful lot of other people that I’ve spoken to.”
Key pledges for the Greens
• Fight for free social care
• Centre the wellbeing economy
• Action on homes and energy
• Improving Southwark’s safe streets
• Being the best local councillors that your ward could hope for, to work hard for our communities all year round, working with honesty and a genuine desire to make Southwark a better place.
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- Labour currently runs the council, what does their leader has to say? – Click here
- WATCH: We did a special Gogglebox-style coverage in the in the run-up to the election – click below to view what residents have to say
Southwark Elections 2022: What do the ordinary people of Southwark think?
- The Lib Dems are the only other party with seats on the council, what does their leader have to say? – Click here
- The Conservatives are hoping to get back seat on the council – how are they planning to do that? – Click here
- Outside the mainstream three other parties are standing in some areas of Southwark – who are they? – Read below
