Hello, my name is David Baines, running as a candidate for the Green Party in Farnham South.

Full statement

I am in the Green Party because it stands for more than politics-as-usual, the kind of politics that isn't delivering any more what local residents need. I would fight to help achieve:

Transport

• Improve road safety
• Bring highways maintenance in house
• Expand reliable and accessible public transport
• Invest in safe walking and cycling routes
• Support 20mph residential zones

Early years

• Invest in early help, youth services and family support
• Expand special educational needs and disabilities {SEND}
• Improve education, health and care (EHC) plans

Social care

• Invest in local, person-centred care and strengthen home care services
• Support community-based care networks
• Introduce a West Surrey Social Care Charter designed with residents and carers
• Improve support and recognition for unpaid carers

Climate

• Expand grants for solar panels, insulation and heat pumps, prioritising low-income households
• Support community energy projects

Restore nature

• Expand wildlife habitats and nature corridors
• Increase tree planting and woodland creation
• Support rewilding projects
• Restrict pesticide use and bring grounds maintenance in-house

Homes for local people

• Prioritise genuinely affordable homes
• Build energy-efficient social housing using sustainable construction
• Retrofit existing council homes to cut energy bills
• Protect landscapes, nature and green spaces in planning decisions

The Surrey County Council Section 151 officer – basically the Chief Financial Officer - has announced that the new unitary authority, West Surrey, facing huge levels of inherited debt, is forecast to stop all discretionary (that is non-statutory) spending by 2028. This would have a dramatic effect on Farnham South, whose residents would face the prospect of having to help themselves as a community to meet the shortfall in services that would occur.

This all-too-possible world is one to which the local Green Party is well placed to be of help: since September last year our membership has tripled to over a thousand, many of them young and mustard keen to support our local councillors in serving their communities.

I offer you the Green Party for a fairer, greener, world.