I have lived in Headington for 30 years working for the NHS. I enjoy gardening, conservation work and folk dance.
I am extremely concerned about the climate emergency. I am standing to give voters in Headington an opportunity to vote Green.

Biography

I moved to Oxford two decades ago with my job working for an international NGO. My children grew up in Oxford and it's now very much our family hometown.

I am a social scientist, trained in social justice. My professional background includes working in international development, poverty alleviation, community development, human rights law, and gender women and development.
I do free lance academic research on Indigenous land rights and Indigenous conservation. I am also a capacity building consultant for civil society strengthening.

The Green Party values align with my professional values, and with my personal commitment to the community. Because of this, I have been a long time supporter of the Green Party.

Why I want to stand

I want to stand for election for the Green Party because it is the only party whose values and ideology I support, and I want to take a more active role:

1. The bigger picture: The UK needs a new direction. I think we are facing a severe failure of governance. The covid response was badly bungled leaving us with one of the highest rates of infections and mortality in the world, the country is facing food shortages, fuel shortages, a shortage of labour in agriculture, health care, education; the fishing industry is struggling, many car manufacturers have folded, EU citizens are being overtly discriminated against by the government, asylum seekers are facing cruelty... again by the government..in violation of international treaty agreements; the human rights legal norms are being threatened by the government; the NHS, one of the most strongest and most sane welfare mechanisms in the whole world is being consistently dismantled by the current government; the UK is one of the biggest money laundering tax havens and corruption at the highest levels remains unaccountable. It is like a country at war with shortages and high food prices and falling pound sterling. It's frightening that this economic political chaos is self imposed by the government's commitment to destructive policies such as Brexit and reinforcing inequality.
   
   Though the UK government has committed to the international green agenda, in actuality it falls far behind its promises. This is very concerning. The earth is heating up relentlessly. We can't sit around and watch the flooding, and fires, and glacial melts.
   
   
2. Oxford: The nation wide inequalities are mirrored in Oxford, which is a relatively wealthy city but has the second highest rate of rough sleeper deaths in England, and is the second most unaffordable city in the UK. The council is building housing on the green belt, and we have a water shortage looming. The council is failing to take concrete action on climate change, though it talks about it. We need a more equal, fairer, and greener Oxford.
   
   Local government can be a momentous force for good when used in the right way. I think the Greens have the right policies, ideas, and vision, with which the local councils can transform people's lives.
   
   
3. Alternative Green vision: The Green Party can change this direction if we build a consensus with other parties and a broad-based intersecting movement that sets out a progressive vision for holistic change. I feel the Green Party is the only one which is responding to these urgent needs. The youth are turning to the Green Party. The youth are concerned with ecological health and safety because they are inheriting the mess earlier generations created. They are also committed to peace and economic unity of the sort the EU offers.

I think the Green Party offers us all this hope that we can create the much needed change. And I would like to play my part and contribute actively to the Green party vision for an alternative which would turn the current political tide in the UK.

Green councillors in Oxfordshire told us their stories in two Meet a Green Councillor events this July. They told us how they got interested and elected and then their experiences as local councillors. Take a look at the videos. Would you like to stand for election? Or could you assist a councillor with the wonderful work they are doing?

Read more to watch the videos.

This is a call for candidates to stand for the Green Party at the 2023 elections to councils in Oxfordshire.

Following our successes in the 2022 elections, we now have 3 Green councillors on Oxfordshire County Council, 17 district councillors and many parish and town councillors. They are getting things done, in administration in South Oxfordshire, West Oxfordshire and Oxfordshire County and in opposition in Oxford, Cherwell and the Vale, holding the big parties to account.

We need more Green councillors in Oxfordshire. Could you follow in the footsteps of our Green Party councillors, and stand for election? You could improve the quality of our councils by representing the people and views that the governing parties ignore.

In 2023 there are council elections in Cherwell District (north Oxfordshire), West Oxfordshire and across South Oxfordshire and the Vale.

Act now

If you are at all interested in standing as a candidate, or helping organise a campaign for a candidate, please complete the form below, and the Elections Committee will get back to you with more details.

If you want any more information on what is involved in standing as candidate, please contact the Elections Co-ordinator, David Newman.

We are looking for both target candidates, who will work hard to win in this election, and non-target candidates who need to do as little as getting on the ballot paper and our website so that people can vote everywhere for a Green Party candidate. There are also a few places where a development candidate could build support over time to win a later election.

Last week people came to Oxford to discuss how we could quickly get to zero net carbon dioxide production around the world. Here are video recordings of their talks at the public meeting chaired by Lord Mayor of Oxford, Green councillor Craig Simmons.

Watch and learn and then go out to support today's Global Climate Strike.

On Halloween Keith Taylor MEP come to give us a fright: about air pollution in cities like Oxford and towns like Watlington. At a public meeting in Oxford Town Hall he was joined by Dr. Imad Ahmed who has discovered a possible connection between traffic pollution and Alzheimer's disease, and Chris Church of Oxford FOE.

Read more to view video recordings of their speech and find out what you can do to make Oxford a breathable city.

Oxfordshire Green Party is supporting industrial action by hospital porters against threatened cuts to their incomes. 

Greens have reacted strongly against Tory plans to sell off social housing predicting it will be an 'unmitigated disaster for Oxford' putting more people on the streets, increasing rents and leading to more households  being forced to move away from their family, friends and support networks. 

Larry Sanders, Ann Duncan and Allyson Pollock

Around 200 people came to Oxford Town Hall on Tuesday to hear Prof. Alysson Pollock explain how the NHS has been dismantled and how to reinstate it. Listen to her talk.

She explained how over 20 years, under different governments, more and more of the NHS has been opened to private money, until the Health and Social Care Act 2012 removed the Government’s obligation to provide comprehensive free health care for all. The NHS is no longer providing a service, but an organisation commissioning contracts. The contractors can often pick and choose who they will treat.

These elections the Oxfordshire Green Party is running candidates in all of the Oxford wards, including the Summertown by-election, for a total of 25 candidates. The candidates, listed by the ward they are standing in, are: