Joanna Collins has lived in High Peak for over 25 years and has been a Green Party High Peak Borough Councillor since 2019.

Full statement

On the Council she tabled a successful motion to declare a climate emergency and is vice-chair of the Climate Change Working Group. She has worked across parties to achieve positive outcomes for local people and for the environment, most recently starting an initiative to look at access to banking services for people in local small towns and rural areas.

Outside the Council Joanna volunteers for Citizens Advice in Buxton. Work at Citizens Advice highlights the unfair systems creating barriers for less-advantaged people, including lack of housing, debt, poor health and family breakdown. She also volunteers for local nature conservation projects and is an active member of local sustainability groups. Joanna is Chair of Edale Parish Council and was a school governor locally for many years.

She has extensive experience of working with teams in many countries as well as managing them in the UK, and speaking to sometimes hostile stakeholders. This required political and cultural sensitivity, as well as an understanding of how to bring about positive change while not antagonising those whose support is needed.

Joanna has loved nature all her life, and has become increasingly concerned about climate change, biodiversity loss and the terrible social issues our country faces. She joined the Green Party because no other party seemed genuinely to care about the natural world, rising inquality and the wastefulness of excessive consumption. .