Congratulations to our new Green County Councillors

Gina Dowding (Lancaster Central), Paul Stubbins (Lancaster East) and Hamish Mills (Lancaster South East) – have all been elected to Lancashire County Council with big majorities!

They will form a Green Group of 4 along with Cllr Sohail Asghar (Accrington West & Oswaldtwistle Central), from Hyndburn Green Party, doubling the number of County seats the Green Party previously held in Lancashire.

Cllr Ashgar said:

“I am deeply honoured and privileged to represent my local division. As a young and energetic voice for the community, I’m eager to get to work tackling the issues that matter most to residents. I look forward to working collaboratively with fellow councillors and community members to drive positive change and help build a fairer, greener, and thriving Lancashire for all.”

Sadly we missed out on some other hoped-for wins, as Reform UK made huge gains. They have taken control of Lancashire County Council, winning a majority (53) of the 84 seats, including all of the Morecambe, Heysham, Skerton and Rural seats in the Lancaster District, and several more in Wyre.

You can see the detailed County results here. 

Congratulations to our youngest and newest Green City Councillor

Wilson Colley‘s win in the John O’Gaunt by-election ensured that Greens remain the largest group (with 23 seats) on Lancaster City Council. Wilson gave a rousing acceptance speech, denouncing the politics of hate and division that have swept the country, and speaking of the real hope and real change that Greens bring to our communities.

National Results

Greens won 86 seats, which was a net gain of 43 seats across England, including breakthroughs onto three new councils. We now have a record 859 seats on 181 councils!

See also:

Our candidates

The Green Party Manifesto and Local Government

Our Lancashire County Council Manifesto

The post Local Elections 2025 – 4 Greens Elected! appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

The turnout was 30.8 % and the results were:

• Andrew Robert Otway (Green Party) – 623 (57.7%) ELECTED
• Mark Andrew Jarnell (Labour Party) – 241  (22.3%)
• Timothy Wood (Conservative Party) – 148 (13.7%)
• Malcolm Martin (Liberal Democrats) 66(6.1%)

Andrew’s win confirms the Green Party as the biggest group on Lancaster City Council, with 23 out of 61 seats. Labour have 21, Liberal Democrats 7, Conservatives 5, Morecambe Bay Independents 3 and non-aligned Independents 2.

It also makes us the joint second biggest group of elected Greens in the UK, along with Mid-Suffolk who also have 23 Green Councillors. Only Bristol has an even bigger elected Green Group, with 34.

Andrew is a Scotforth resident who worked at Lancaster Central Library for 30 years before his recent retirement. He said:

“Thank you to all the voters of Scotforth East and to everyone who took the time to chat to about local issues. I have lots of ideas and casework to follow up, and am looking forward to making a difference as one of the councillors for this lovely, friendly part of Lancaster.”

You can read more about Andrew here.

Cllr Caroline Jackson, Leader of the Green Group and Deputy Leader of the Council said:

“Congratulations to Andrew – I’m delighted to welcome him to our hard-working team of Green Councillors.  I’m now looking forward to discussions with our current partners in the successful joint administration (Green, Labour and Lib Dem) about the consequences for the next two and half years.”

The post Greens confirmed as biggest group on Lancaster City Council after By-election win in Scotforth East appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

A HUGE thankyou to everyone who voted Green.

Here in North Lancashire our results were:

Lancaster & Wyre:5236 votes – 12.2%
Morecambe & Lunesdale: 2089 votes – 4.3%

This was not the results we had hoped for. As always our vote was squeezed by tactical voting under the unfair first-past-the-post voting system. Even so, we tripled our vote share in Lancaster & Wyre (compared to 2019), and laid a good foundation to build on next time, and in both Constituencies the vote share was higher than 2015, our previous best.

Meanwhile, across the country the Green Party had its best ever General Election result, winning over 1.8 million votes. 

Greens polled 7.2% of the votes overall – a record high for us!

Through a very targeting campaign aiming at 4 target seats, we also won 4 new MPs who will be pushing Keir Starmer’s Labour Government to be bolder, better, and greener. Sian Berry in Brighton & Hove, Ellie Chowns in North Herefordshire, Adrian Ramsay in Waveney Valley, Carla Denyer in Bristol Central. 

Meanwhile, the Greens came second in at least 40 other constituencies.

Jack Lenox, our Candidate for Lancaster & Wyre said:

“Well, that wasn’t the result we were hoping for, or thought we were heading for. It’s easy to lose sight of how big an achievement our result is. And I couldn’t be happier with our incredible victories in Bristol, Herefordshire, Suffolk, Brighton, and of course our local by-election in the University ward.

I’m so grateful to everyone who has helped with our campaign, and to everyone who had the courage to vote Green. Of course, congratulations are due to Cat Smith and Labour on their victory in Lancaster and Wyre, and across the country.

With love and peace, we’ll be back. “

Gina Dowding, our Candidate for Morecambe & Lunesdale said

“To EVERYONE in Morecambe and Lunesdale a huge THANK YOU to those who sent me an email in the last few weeks – on issues ranging from more support needed for those living with chronic illnesses.. to those desperate for a better welfare system.. or wanting to give a voice for animal welfare and the future health of our fragile planet. And many more.

I sent replies to over 200 emails and apologies if you didn’t get one – I just ran out of time. I feel your frustration with how things are, and appreciate your hopes for the future.

Congratulations to Lizzi Collinge on winning in Morecambe and Lunesdale.”

A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO … voted Green, delivered leaflets, knocked on doors, displayed posters or signboards, did some printing, stuffed envelopes, donated funds, made food or gave lifts to volunteers, liked and shared our posts on social media, endorsed our candidates, or helped on polling day!

A lot of Green Party members and volunteers have worked incredibly hard over the past few weeks, successfully scaling up our leafletting and canvassing to include Skerton, Scale Hall and several Wyre wards in addition to the many Lancaster wards where we were already very active. Just a few of our wonderful volunteers are pictured here, from polling day:

Special thanks also to the coordinating team:

Jack Lenox and Gina Dowding for being such inspirational and hard-working candidates, and dealing with an avalanche of emails and media requests.

Izzy Metcalf-Riener, our new Campaign Organiser, who had only been in post for a couple of weeks before the General Election was called, and rose to the challenge admirably! Among other things she led on volunteer coordination and internal communications, managing all our electoral data, and designing some of our election literature.

Hamish Mills, who coordinated our polling day operation.

Ceri Turner who led our external communications via social media and the NLGP website.

Caroline Montague who led on outreach to Wyre members and voters.

Emily Heath who coordinated the overall strategy, budget and team meetings and devised most of the leafletting rounds for new wards.

Anne Chapman our ever-reliable Election Agent, for getting all our legal paperwork submitted on time.

Kathryn Bancroft, Steve Hoyland, Endar Kaur, Ceri Mumford, Hamish Mills, Mollie Foxall, Sam Riches and Paul Stubbins for coordinating leafletting, and James Sommerville for transporting 70,000 leaflets and newspapers to all the coordinators.

Jon Mills (plus Tim Dant and Paul Tynan) who coordinated getting ‘Vote Green’ signboards erected in nearly 100 front gardens/yards (bringing smiles to all our supporters as they travel around!). They will now organise getting them stored for re-use in next year’s County Council elections. If you have one please keep it somewhere safe until we are able to get it from you.A HUGE thankyou to everyone who voted Green.

The post General Election Results appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

The composition of the Council is now Labour 23, Green 22, 7 Lib Dem, 5 Conservative, 3 Morecambe Bay Independents and 1 non-aligned Independent.

The turnout for the election was very low due to the election being held after the end of university term, when most students had gone home. This did not make it easier to campaign, in addition the campaign began in exam season, there was the protest camp ( During much of the campaign Maria was based at the Palestine Solidarity Encampment on campus and invited students to come and speak to her at any time) and the local party had a General Election campaign to run at the same time!

So – we were delighted with the campaign run by Maria, Tom, and the team at the University and the result!Maria spoke to students around campus about the improvements they would like to see, and made pledges based on  5 areas of concern she has identified around the cost of living crisis, lack of mental health services, the Palestine Solidarity encampment (a protest camp against University involvement in the arms industry), student safety and Net Zero targets. She promised to make sure the voice of Lancaster University students is heard.

Maria spoke out during the campaign about how the cost of living crisis is affecting students, saying: 

“The cost of living crisis has affected us all in one way or another. In a study of over 4500 uni students, the NUS found that 96% of students are making cutbacks because of the cost of living crisis.

“More than a quarter of these are living on less than £50 a month after paying bills and rent. The university offers many different avenues of support like the supper club, community cupboards and LUSU pantry.

These are amazing programmes that have been able to support the people struggling most, but, its just not enough. As your councillor I would be able to get involved in the cost of living group, a group responsible for assessing what students need most to help them through this extremely tricky time.”

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