16 April 2021
Oldham & Saddleworth Green Party announce their candidates and priorities for the people of Oldham
In this year’s Oldham Borough Council Elections we have candidates in the following wards Alexandra, Chadderton North, Chadderton Central, Coldhurst, Royton South, Crompton, Saddleworth North, Saddleworth South, St James, St Mary's and Waterhead. Click here to find out about our candidates.
There is also a Saddleworth parish council by election in Greenfield where Green Party candidate, Louise Banawich, will be standing.
On the same day in the Greater Manchester Mayor election, everyone in Oldham will have the chance to vote for Green Party candidate Melanie Horrocks. Click here to find out her priorities for Greater Manchester
The Greens are the fastest growing party in the UK. In the last local elections in 2019, we more than doubled our number of councillors to nearly 400. People are turning to the Greens because we offer a positive alternative to the failures of the past.
These are our priorities for the people of Oldham and Saddleworth:
The coronavirus has given us a new appreciation of how valuable our green spaces are to us. They give us breathing space and healthy places to exercise. Protecting and expanding our green spaces will also help us tackle climate change and halt the serious decline of wildlife.
Local people want us to do more to protect and expand our precious green spaces. Green Councillors would act to stop building, not just on our green belt, but also on our other precious local green spaces, such as Thornley Brook and Cowlishaw. There are enough brownfield sites to support the housing and economic development that we need for our town to flourish.
Development should be a partnership between the community and the council not a top down demand from government or private companies.
We need clean air fit to breathe and action to reduce air pollution which is wrecking health and causing up to 40,000 premature deaths a year. Safe, reliable, affordable public transport is a big step in improving the quality of our air and just one part of our ambitious clean air plans.
Green Councillors will look at ways of making our roads and pavements safer for cyclists and walkers. This means more action to clean up dog-fouling, more investment in street cleaning and community policing.
With a permanent reduction in car use predicted, it’s time to cancel new major road schemes and reallocate the money to making safe streets and space for walking, cycling, shopping and play a reality - for everyone, every day.
Urgent action for funding and essential services to keep us safe during the Covid-19 pandemic must include a full reform of the chaotic social care system to give our elderly and disabled people the dignity they have a right to expect in their lives.
The two main parties in government have played party politics with social care for decades, blaming each other and failing to act. The fact is, privatising the care homes and services, and big cuts to funding, have created the crisis faced over the last year by staff, residents and people receiving home care.
There should be no profit motive in care. We care because our elderly and disabled people deserve to be cared for, not for profit.
In 2019 a total of 25,357 families were stuck on Oldham Council’s housing waiting list with nowhere to go, the situation has got far worse since then.
Green Councillors in Oldham will make genuinely affordable homes, whether for renting or buying, an absolute priority for the council. We will keep up the pressure on the government to allow councils to start building homes again.
Unable to buy and with the lack of council homes to rent, many people are trapped in high cost private rented properties. The Green Party is calling for rent controls to bring down housing costs and help tackle housing insecurity and poverty.
More affordable housing will help fix our broken housing market. Decent, affordable housing is a basic human right and the Green Party will fight for local people to have this right.
Listen to Brian Banawich, candidate for Saddleworth South, talk about our priorities for Oldham on 28 April 2021 on Oldham Community Radio
If you vote for the same old parties you will get the same old result. Only a vote for the Green Party on May 6th will bring about positive and long-lasting change in Oldham and Saddleworth.
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