The Green Party have announced their candidates for mayor of the Tees Valley and North East Combined Authorities.
Andrew Gray will be their candidate in the election for Mayor of the North East Combined Authority.
Andrew was born in Newcastle and raised in Northumberland. For the last twenty years he has lived in Newcastle and used public transport to commute to work in Durham where he works with historic archives and is a workplace rep for his trade union.
“If the new finance and powers in the devolution deal are to truly transform our region, that money and power cannot just sit with a mayor and regional leaders,” said Andrew Gray. “For the North East to thrive, its communities need to be back in control. Money needs to be spent directly within communities, where it will create more jobs and provide more benefits, rather than trickling down from big regional projects.”
Andrew says he will be campaigning for the big changes needed to make North East communities fairer, greener and more resilient. He is proposing a home insulation programme to ensure that every home will be warm and cheaper to heat, a public transport system that is reliable, integrated, frequent and serves every community, skills training and apprenticeships for the work needed to transform our economy and support for every community to develop resilience and to prosper.
Sally Bunce will be the Green Party candidate for the Tees Valley Combined Authority.
Bunce was born and brought up in Elland, North Yorkshire before working in the pharmaceutical industry and then as a police officer in Cleveland and North Yorkshire for seventeen years. Now living in Redcar and Cleveland, she is actively campaigning alongside fishers and scientists to uncover the true cause of the mass marine die off affecting the north east coast. Sally is also a volunteer marine mammal medic and teaches ocean conservation in educational settings.
Commenting on her selection as candidate, Sally said: “I’ve worked tirelessly to combat social and environmental injustice since moving to the Cleveland coast almost six years ago. I decided to stand for Tees Valley Mayor to bring the transparency, honest and integrity that has been lacking from the role so far. I look forward to working with the great people of the Tees Valley to bring about the changes which they rightly deserve.”
Sally speaking at the Festival of Thrift
Despite having nineteen councillors in the North East region, the Green Party will only be able to stand if their candidates can raise the £5,000 deposit. If you would like to see a Green on the ballot paper, you can donate to Andrew’s Crowdfunder here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/a-green-mayor-for-the-north-east and Sally’s here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/sally-4-teesvally