North Staffs Greens Pledge to Fight on as the Party Achieves Record Results in the Local Elections. By Adam Colclough

Green Party activists in North Staffordshire say they will continue the fight to protect green spaces following the local elections.

Nationally the Green Party achieved record breaking results winning 124 seats and showing a net gain from Labour, the Tories, and the Liberal Democrats of 78 seats. This gives them a total of 545 councillors on 166 local authorities.

In a press statement co-leader Carla Denyer said the results showed the Greens were “building a strong platform to win more MPs at the next General Election, as more and more communities see that voting Green gets you hard-working, honest representatives”.

In Newcastle-under-Lyme the Conservatives consolidated their hold on the borough council, winning 25 seats, enough to give them control. This bucked a national trend that saw the party lose hundreds of seats and control of several flagship councils including Westminster and Barnet to Labour.

Factors including partygate, and the cost-of-living crisis have been cited as driving the flight of voters away from the Tories. John Mallinson conservative leader of Carlisle council told the Guardian that it had been “difficult to drag the debate back to local issues” when the public were so angry with how the government are performing.

North Staffs Green Party stood two candidates at the latest local elections, Will Wood in Cross Heath and Jessie Mellor in Bradwell.

Jessie Mellor has been a prominent figure in the fight to protect green spaces in the borough from unnecessary development, including 400 trees near to Bradwell Hospital set to be felled to make way for executive housing. She gained 190 votes and said the result had spurred her on to ‘work even harder’ over the next four years.

A spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said it was “disappointing” that the Conservatives had been returned with an increased majority, but this had “not in any way diminished our determination to continue fighting to protect green spaces across the borough and beyond and to keep campaigning for climate justice”.

The strong results they have achieved across the country have put the Greens in a position to play ‘kingmaker’ in several councils where no one party has overall control, including Hastings and Worcester. This will see them continue their established tradition of working cooperatively with other parties.

Celebrating the results Carla Denyer said the Green Party had proved that it was becoming “a major political force” because it had “a positive vision, clear policies, and dedicated local councillors”.

Full details of Green Party election results for 2022 can be found here.