North Tyneside Green Party Manifesto for Community Wellbeing
Introduction:
We think there are three major challenges in our community that impact on our lives right now:
- The climate emergency
- The environmental crisis
- social inequality
We believe that increased democratic activity and greater transparency in Council decision-
making are needed to bring these about. These issues are inextricably linked and we recognise
that solving one of them cannot be achieved without solving the others.
No other political party is addressing these issues effectively. Local government is being
starved of resources leading to a breakdown of our public services. Central government is
reneging on pledges to reduce carbon emissions. Our political system is locked into a 2-party
electoral process that no longer reflects the electorate’s views. We need fresh thinking and new approaches to addressing our problems.
Let’s begin the change we need:
Vote Green in the May elections
Vote for new people and ideas into North Tyneside Council.
Below is an overview of our Manifesto commitments. We believe these actions will help tackle the climate, environmental and social crises locally and at the same time improve residents’ mental, physical and social well-being.
The Climate Emergency
We commit to achieving net zero carbon emissions in North Tyneside by 2030 by:
- Working towards making all housing and buildings energy-efficient
- Creating comprehensive and integrated networks of local public transport
- Promoting walking and cycling by making both safer and easier to do
- Reduce incineration by encouraging recycling and supporting local up-cycling
The Environmental Crisis
- Increasing tree planting, and restoring, repairing and ‘re-wilding’ local green spaces
- Improving air quality, especially in built-up areas, by reducing fossil-fuelled traffic
- Encouraging household food production and a local food network, bringing together producers, retailers and consumers to reduce food miles and increase freshness
- Joining other councils in supporting the Climate and Ecology Bill
Social Inequality
We commit to making life easier for all our residents by:
- Creating and supporting meaningful employment locally that pays a living wage
- Ensuring that wealth created locally stays with, and benefits, the community
- Building more council houses to provide lower-cost rented accommodation
- Developing a programme of learning opportunities which encourage creative expression as well as employment-related skills
local democracy
We believe that the role of councillors is to work with residents and community groups on the issues which concern them. To this end, we will:
- Encourage our councillors to hold public meetings in their wards on local issues
- Bring in more participatory models of decision making such as citizens’ assemblies
- Review the website and make it easier to access and find information
- Campaign for a proportional electoral system and giving the vote to 16-17 year-olds
