Green Party candidate urges voters to send 'clear message' to establishment in Mayoral election
The Green Party's candidate for West Midlands Mayor has asked voters to show they are "tired of business as usual" at the upcoming election.
Launching his manifesto for the May 6 poll, Councillor Steve Caudwell called on people to "send a clear message" to the political elite by rejecting the two main parties.
Mr Caudwell, who leads the Green opposition on Solihull Council, said he wants to renegotiate the devolution settlement and achieve a West Midlands "that works for everyone".
His plans include an overhaul of Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) to ensure that women are "well represented" among senior staff, with targets set so they "better involve people from all backgrounds" in decision making.
He said: "The Green Party is enjoying increasing success nationally, regionally and locally. We now have over three hundred and seventy councillors, including eighty-six in the West Midlands alone.
"We now share in the administration in eighteen councils across England and Wales.
"In October 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made it clear that 2030 has to be the target for wide-ranging, systemic reorganisation of how we live, move and work – and this is a reality that only the Green Party acknowledges.
"So the Green Party is an increasingly relevant voice; indeed we are the third party of English and Welsh politics. And our voice is crucial, because the climate emergency won’t wait."
The 102-page manifesto includes plans to demand greater powers from central government, and to form a directly elected assembly similar to the one in London.
It calls for a "genuinely green industrial revolution", and pledges to support the creation of more community banks, while a deputy mayor will be appointed.
On transport Mr Caudwell says he will lobby to bring buses back into public ownership, and to work with councils to establish new services and routes.
He says he will push to bring disused rail lines back into use for passenger services and work to introduce a smart ticketing system, while also creating "cycle superhighways" and investigating the prospect of a workplace parking levy.
He has also pledged to set up a municipally-owned West Midlands Energy Company and to press for all new builds to be zero carbon.
Mr Caudwell has also vowed to help local community groups and businesses to explore "how they can become more sensitive to the needs of trans people".
He said: "This manifesto, I’m confident, will be quite unlike those put forward by the establishment parties.
"We have for too long tinkered at the edges of a socio-economic model that has substantively failed to improve life chances for the majority of our residents. The divides between us are bigger than ever, and the looming climate crisis only makes it yet more urgent that we heal them as quickly as possible.
"On May 6, I ask you to send a clear message to the political establishment that we’re tired of business as usual, and that we need a West Midlands that works for everyone.
"Tell them we need an end to the poverty scandal; we need a Genuinely Green Industrial Revolution, and we need a transport system we can actually use. And I ask you to do that by giving me your first vote to be the next Mayor of the West Midlands."
Other candidates are incumbent Andy Street (Cons), Liam Byrne (Lab), Jenny Wilkinson (Lib Dem), Tim Weller (Indep) and Ashvir Sangha (Indep).