Archive : Penny Remfry – 2021 Green Party Candidate for Elected Mayor
In 2021, Penny Remfry stood as the North Tyneside Borough Green Party Candidate for Elected Mayor.
Penny finished third, beating Candidates for the Liberal Democrats and UKIP.
Penny doubled our number of first preferential votes (up to 4278 from 1995); doubled our vote share (from 3.41% up to 6.89%).
We understand that Penny received a significant number of second preference votes, but due to the Electoral System, these are not counted and so official numbers are not available.
Press Statements
The following links provide further detail of Penny’s proposed policies.
Mayoral Address : Penny Remfry – Your Green Party Candidate for Mayor
“I’ve lived here for almost 50 years and I’m so glad that North Tyneside is my home now. It’s a great place to live.
I love our beautiful and varied natural environment as well as the fascinating reminders of the part our communities have played in the past, from the development of Christianity to the age of steam and coal and our importance in seafaring activities.
We have so much potential now to make the borough an even better place.
But we are facing challenging times.
With over 12 months of lockdown because of the pandemic and the need to respond to the climate emergency ever more urgent, we need to rebuild our economy and cut back drastically on our use of fossil fuels.
“A Green Party Mayor will provide strong leadership in making sure that this borough can face the future with confidence knowing that we are all working together to create a healthier, environmentally sustainable and happier place to live.”
Housing : I will build more affordable and energy efficient housing, to rent as well as to buy; support residents to retrofit existing housing so it is carbon-neutral; and establish a sustainable living advice centre to support residents in this.
Health & Wellbeing : I want to see more integration between health and social care at a local level; and I want to see both kept in public ownership and accountable to local residents.
Environment : I will increase the variety and biodiversity of our local environment, protecting green spaces, so that both people and wildlife can flourish.
Transport : I will work to reduce the 36% of carbon produced in the Borough from transport – to do this, I will work to make public transport cheaper and more accessible; establish more networks of footpath and cycleways across the Borough, and, if people need their own car, make it easier to go electric.
Waste & recycling : I will encourage households to reduce the amount of rubbish created; stop all incineration of waste; and increase facilities to recycle, restore and re- purpose.
Local democracy : I will involve residents more directly in the decisions affecting their communities; increase transparency in making and implementing policy; encourage partnerships between public bodies, business, voluntary sector and residents.
Education, training & Jobs : I will skill up our young people to tackle the challenges ahead, preparing them for Green Jobs to make our homes warm and carbon neutral, maintain a healthy environment, decarbonise our transport systems and much more. I want to see valued jobs with good pay.
“Better is possible – I believe that North Tyneside deserves the best, not just for the future, but for now”
Statement from Penny
The Green Party is a growing force in politics here in North Tyneside as well as elsewhere in the country.
We stand for a new approach to organising our society, away from the dominance and priorities of big business towards a focus on what’s good for our planet, our environment, our climate and our communities and individuals who live here.
We know that our climate is changing because of carbon dioxide emissions and that we have to change our carbon hungry ways of living, and we have to do that fast. We know that we can change our lifestyles – just think how different our lives have been during this pandemic – and we know that government can change its priorities too – and that they can find a ‘magic money tree’ when they want to.
The pandemic has laid bare the inequalities in our society with shocking levels of people needing to go to food banks in this, one of the
richest countries in the world. We know that we cannot allow that situation to continue in the new ‘post-covid’ world.
Climate justice, environmental justice and social justice all go together – we cannot have one without the others. “No-one is safe until everyone is safe” is a motto we’ve been hearing a lot of in relation to vaccinations against the coronavirus, but it is true of climate, the environment and social justice as well. Climate change is affecting the poorer parts of the world more than here in the developed world, but the impacts there are already affecting us here through people migration and political instability leading to conflict and much suffering.
Environmental degradation and loss of species is taking place all round the world, our rivers and oceans clogging up with plastic and toxic effluent, forests and tundra burning, bio-diverse areas being turned into monocultures, destroying local eco-systems and taking away people’s ability to live on the land in traditional ways. We human beings are part of the natural world and we know that a beautiful and diverse environment is important to our wellbeing. Even within rich countries there are many people whose lives are impoverished but this kind of inequality exists between countries as well. As long as there is poverty there will be the urge to take from the environment which in turn exacerbates climate change, environmental degradation and further social inequalities.
This country was the most centralised in the European Union – when we were part of it. We have experienced many of the disadvantages of a government which wants to keep all power to itself in our experience of the pandemic, with centralised out-sourcing of PPE when local manufacturers were queuing up to help, government determined levels of lockdown despite small area differences in infection rates, useless test & trace initiatives when local public health departments could have done the job much better had they been
given the resources to do so.
The Green Party believes in involving local people in the decisions which affect their lives, making local politics more participative and bringing in proportional representation voting systems for all political posts, including both MPs and local councillors. In North Tyneside the Green Party would require Cabinet members who are responsible for different areas of responsibility like Transport and the Environment, Housing, Social Care, Young People and Learning etc hold regular meetings with residents to find out what they think of what the Council is doing, and local councillors also to hold meetings in their wards to listen to residents’ suggestions and concerns.
The Green Party in North Tyneside would be focussed on how the borough and its residents will respond to the challenges of the climate emergency and encourage new economic opportunities in the sustainable technologies and products of the future. The Council has pledged to make the borough net carbon zero by 2050; we will work to reach that target by 2030. This will mean challenging targets in retro-fitting our housing, changing our transport habits, making our environment more bio-diverse and accessible and training up our young people to provide the skills, ideas and research needed equip us for meeting these targets.
E-Leaflets
