In May the North Oxfordshire Green Party had it’s 5th consecutive win in Oxfordshire gaining a further seat on Cherwell District Council. This gives us 4 members now having grown from the single member we had in 2019 (me).

As I reported last year we were poised to take control in 2023 as part of a 4 way alliance with the Lib Dems, Labour and the Independents. That whole project collapsed at the 11th hour when Labour pulled out of the deal because the didn’t want to work with the Greens. So we had to double our efforts this year to gain additional seats, along with the Lib Dems so that we could finish the job of removing the Conservatives from power across the whole of Oxfordshire. This was something both our parties had promised in 2023 but at that point without Labour’s support we couldn’t deliver on that pledge.

Happily this year we can!

Along with our Lib Dem colleagues we had the numbers this year to take minority control of the council. Sadly we are still 3 seats short of an overall majority, but we felt we needed to deliver on our promises and so have formed an administration. The comprises of two groups – the Lib Dems, who now sit as a single group rather than as part of a group with the Greens and the Independents who have now formed their own separate group which I lead. We joined with the single independent who had previously ben part of the Progressive Oxfordshire Group – the alliance I was a founding member of in 2019.

Our new group is called the Green and Independent Alliance, which neatly forms the acronym ‘GAIA’ which we thought was appropriate for a group of 4 Greens and one Independent, especially as the independent member is a Green in all but name.

Our two groups have now signed a formal coalition agreement to run the council together with 2 Greens, Myself and To Beckett sitting on the executive in Green and Environment roles.

This is a great outcome for us and we hope for the people of Cherwell. We hope to make the district a better place to live and work for everyone as well as improving nature recovery and tackling climate change.

Of course we have since been overtaken by events when on the very day we agreed our new administration Rishi Sunak called a General Election. I must admit that this rather caught us all on the hop just as we were all starting to get to grips with our new leadership roles on the council. This is even more tricky for me since I am the Green Party Parliamentary candidate for the new constituency of Bicester and Woodstock. There will be more on that in my next post.