Southwark has more than 14,000 households on the waiting list for a council home and 3,000 in temporary accommodation.(1) The Labour-led council’s plan to tackle its housing crisis includes building new homes on green spaces and other communal areas on its council estates, a practice known as “infilling”.

On Saturday 25 March Southwark Greens, together with Tenant and Resident Associations from Rotherhithe, Bermondsey, Peckham and Walworth and many other local groups, took part in a march through the borough organized by Defend Council Housing to fight for an end to social cleansing.

The Green Party candidates for London Bridge & West Bermondsey ward in the deferred Southwark Council local election on Thursday 14 June 2018 are Claude Werner and Bernard Creely.

Claude Werner began his social activism in Newcastle upon Tyne. There he set up a residents association and a neighbourhood watch programme and actively campaigned to protect safe places for families and children. He moved to London and settled in Bermondsey in 2014, where shortly after he joined the Green Party and became interested in bigger issues. Since then he's been involved in the last two general elections as well as helping out with some council by-elections. He's also a strong supporter of participatory systems (political and economical) and an active campaigner for issues surrounding inequality and environmental abuses.

The Green Party candidates for North Bermondsey ward in the Southwark Council elections on Thursday 3rd May 2018 are Kevin Jones and Clare Cummings.

Kevin Jones is a freelance consultant who has lived in Bermondsey for ten years. He has been a long-term advocate of policies that help protect the environment, and this led to him join the Green Party in 2016. “I’m keen that we make the borough a healthier, cleaner and happier place to live and work. Priority areas for me are: affordable housing for families; excellent education facilities for children; and a transport strategy that ensures we have reliable and frequent services and also invests in infrastructure that has a positive impact on the environment, including increasing the number of electric and hydrogen buses on the roads, further extending London’s cycling network, and increasing the number of charge points for electric vehicles.”

Clare Cummings has lived in Southwark for the past four years and is alarmed at the local injustices facing many Londoners in the form of air pollution, access to housing, road traffic fatalities and threats to our shared public spaces. Clare has campaigned with Fossil Free Southwark to persuade Southwark Council to divest its pension funds from fossil fuel companies, showing that global challenges can be addressed locally. As London continues to grow and is affected by global and national changes, Clare is committed to fighting to make Southwark a liveable place for everyone - healthy, affordable, sustainable and where people can know and trust each other.

The Green Party candidates for South Bermondsey ward in the Southwark Council elections on Thursday 3rd May 2018 are Paul Blackman and Valerie Remy.

Paul Blackman has lived in North Southwark for 30 years and championed the Green Party throughout that time. Paul’s major concerns in the borough are housing, energy, green spaces and traffic pollution. He wants to see a rebalance of our diminished social housing stock; the development of community non-profit, sustainable energy cooperatives, our parks protected and improved, and, as a keen cyclist, he is all too aware of the need to reduce the volume of traffic, so that we can safely live and move around the borough without the risk of being knocked down or asphyxiated. Paul has worked as a journalist specialising in travel, tourism and related environmental issues.