26th May 2008

Town Hall
S1 2HH

Dear Editor

In the recent elections, the Green Party strengthened its position as the
third party in Sheffield by winning another seat from Labour in Central
ward. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems won an outright majority across the city thus ending the “balance of power” situation. Why did this happen and what can the Green Party now offer?
We won in Central ward for three reasons. Firstly, we offered a real
alternative to Labour. Our campaign themes were: affordable housing and
heating bills; better public transport; a stronger focus on localising the
economy; and opposition to privatisation in schools, hospitals and council
services such as waste management and highways maintenance. With just two Councillors, we made real progress in all these areas through our budget proposals, motions to council and local and city-wide campaigns.

Secondly, Green councillors have gained a reputation for supporting
individuals and local groups in all communities across every part of the
diverse ward. We did well in the city centre, the council estates, the leafy
suburbs and amongst ethnic minorities. People trusted us despite the deluge of misleading leaflets from other parties.
Thirdly, we delivered newsletters and knocked on doors throughout the year, rather than over-reliance on signing up selected sections of the population for postal votes. Face to face contact gives us a direct understanding of local issues.
At last week’s City Council AGM we abstained in the vote on who should form the administration. As last year, we will not ally ourselves with either of
the major parties, but will vote on an issue-by-issue basis and work with
whoever will support our policies. We stand for social and environmental
justice, but unlike the others, we are prepared to carry our principles into
mainstream decision making rather than treating them as an add-on to
business as usual.

Thus we support Labour’s “closing the gap policy” and indeed the Lib Dem’s interpretation of it (that even wealthy areas have pockets of deprivation). But if we really want to support those on low incomes we must focus on providing jobs for them, not attracting executives to highly paid jobs in shiny offices in the city centre. We were the only party to object to the
Economic Masterplan, which proposes to create the bulk of new jobs in
financial and business service industries and to increase the average wage rather than that of the lowest paid.
Similarly, we need affordable housing rather than luxury apartments, and
good public transport rather than new roads. Ten years of Labour government has not delivered on these, so the loss of the 10p tax band added insult to injury. As things stand, debt is becoming a massive issue. Key organisations in the city must have the resources to deal with the increased workload of supporting those affected. We will be pushing the new administration to prioritise this.

We support the Lib Dems’ focus on “green” issues. But the environment cannot be reduced to a couple of popular themes, such as saving parks and more kerbside recycling. Open space does not only consist of parks and will increasingly be needed for growing food and generating energy as well as recreation. Throwing money at the private waste contract (signed by the Lib Dems themselves as recently as 2001) will not necessarily deliver the most environmentally useful solutions to waste management. We challenge the “open and honest” Lib Dems to tell the people of Sheffield and front line council staff how they proposed to fund kerbside recycling of glass and tins and to explain why they chose to do this when glass is the least carbon-savingmaterial to recycle. Other waste streams (textiles, plastics) or setting up home composting and kitchen waste collections, or indeed reducing the amount of waste we produce in the first place, would be a better use of the money.

We will continue to work and argue for genuine improvements for people and the planet.

Yours sincerely

Cllr Jillian Creasy, Sheffield Green Party