The Green Party’s London Mayoral candidate Sian Berry outlined her plans to work with Londoners to reshape their city in her speech to the Party’s Conference today.
Speaking to delegates in Bournemouth attending the largest Green Party Autumn Conference to date, Berry focused her speech on the key message of her Mayoral campaign which she described as being about “Giving London back to Londoners. Working with campaigns and citizens to bring their voices into City Hall”
As part of that message, Berry announced that a Green Mayor would block the Earls Court development, with just 11 per cent affordable housing, and set up a new Community Homes Unit in City Hall to give expertise and money to residents to make their own redevelopment plans.
Berry said:
“As a Councillor in Camden I meet people every week in severe housing need. Families living four in a single room, and they can’t understand why there aren’t new homes for them to move into. And new developments all over London are just failing these families.
“And this is happening not just under Boris Johnson’s gaze, but with his active help, overriding local communities and councils to push these deals through.
“In City Hall, we will be different. I will block the Earls Court development. And Greens will put resources and staff into a new Community Homes Unit to support community-led housing schemes, including and especially in estate regenerations and large brownfield sites.
“There is a thread running through all the ways we can solve our problems in London. We don’t want to win a Green Mayor and Assembly Members to take power for ourselves.
“Greens will give London back to Londoners, bringing the voices of its amazing campaigns and citizens into our campaign and then into City Hall. London is at the heart of the crises we face and it will be at the vanguard of how they are solved.”
The Green Party’s Autumn Conference in Bournemouth is its biggest ever. The recent “Green Surge” saw the party’s membership quadruple to 67,000 in just one year and after finishing third in the 2012 London elections the party is now confident of increasing its seats in City Hall and putting in its strongest ever performance in the Mayoral contest.