Apart from the fact that it seems odd that Labour would want to politicise the community hubs, this statement is a complete falsehood. 

It ignores the funding given to the hub network by Stroud District Council and Stroud Town Council, and the fact that many Greens are actively involved in their local hubs as volunteers. 

Labour has been peddling throughout their election campaign the untruth that the Greens voted with the Conservatives at Shire Hall to cut funding for the hubs. 

Again, this is a distortion of the facts, as the Labour canvassers know. The minutes of the County Council meeting in question can be read. Click here to read the relevant minutes, where the relevant pages are 15-22.

Labour are doing a disservice to the residents of Stroud in perpetuating this inaccuracy, which the Green Party addressed in a post at the beginning of April. https://stroud.greenparty.org.uk/news/2025/04/02/labour-canvassers-making-inaccurate-claims-about-greens/

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1. Preventative-led Public Health & Care at a community scale – providing improved Social Care for the most vulnerable;greater prominence for preventative work, including social prescribing
2. Education for the Future – raising attainment for all young people, embedding sustainability and nature recovery into Gloucestershire’s educational system; investing in youth programmes
3. Safe Streets and Better Public Transport – prioritising maintenance and safety of the road network; improving public transport and active travel opportunities; strategic planning for effective, low-carbon transport infrastructure
4. Nature & Green Spaces – properly funding and delivering the Gloucestershire Local Nature Strategy, alongside the new National Forest, and continually increasing the area under nature protection; supporting the county’s growing expertise in natural flood management, and pushing for all County Council-owned land, including farms and verges, to be managed for nature and climate
5. A Thriving Local Economy– supporting local businesses of all sizes; maximising public procurement from the county’s sustainable businesses;
6. Clean, green jobs – further developing the low carbon economy, to bring jobs and income to the county
7. Buildings Fit for the Future – working to convert homes and public buildings to low-carbon heating systems: boosting jobs, reducing bills; ensuring all new county buildings meet the Building With Nature standard
8. Waste Less, Pollute Less – making ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ central to the Council’s planning in all areas; supporting the reduction of single use, promoting and funding community-led initiatives such as composting schemes, and minimising the residual waste sent to the incinerator, including securing any possible changes to the contract to incentivise this
9. Food & Farming – lobbying for proper funding for farmers, including the restoration of the Sustainable Farming Incentive; supporting farmers including in relation to the Government’s new Land Use Strategy, the 25-Year Farming Roadmap and its Food Strategy; recognising the role good, local food has to play in public health; promoting community food projects; halting the sell-off of the county farms
10. Local government reorganisation – engaging fully with the process and considering all the options for new unitary councils, while consulting residents, and supporting the option that gives the best future for local communities. Supporting Town and Parish councils as they prepare for the new Unitary arrangements.

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In 2017, at the time of the incident, Dr Dean was closely involved with helping refugees in Bristol. A patient came to see him and during their consultation, they briefly talked about his work with refugees. After the consultation, Dr Dean texted the patient to ask if she might be interested in helping female African refugees in Bristol. This contact was referred to the General Medical Council by the senior partner at the practice. 

At the tribunal, Dr Dean acknowledged that he breached professional boundary standards by contacting the patient – and he subsequently attended a course to firm up his knowledge of these guidelines. 

The Tribunal concluded that Dr Dean’s conduct “was remediable, has been remedied and is unlikely to be repeated”. The Tribunal was “particularly impressed with the positive testimonials from clinical colleagues”.

It said that Dr Dean’s misconduct was “at the lower end of the scale of misconduct… there is no suggestion… that his actions were … anything other than well-intentioned”.

It referred to his “exemplary humanitarian work” and his “excellent testimonials”.

It concluded: “The Tribunal has therefore determined that, in the particular circumstances of this case, Dr Dean’s fitness to practise is not impaired.”

He was free to continue working as a GP, which he has continued to do locally.

Dr Dean is kind, compassionate, enthusiastic and committed to serving the local community. He has the Green Party’s full support, and we believe that he will be the best person to represent the Dursley Division as their county councillor.

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Cllr Maisey was elected to Stroud District Council last year for the Severn ward, which includes the Parishes of Arlingham, Eastington, Frampton on Severn, Fretherne-with-Saul, Great Oldbury and Whitminster.

He served on the Environment and Development Control committees.

Cllr Maisey was the agent for Simon Opher MP’s successful parliamentary campaign last year.

Cllr Catherine Braun, leader of the council, said: “I was shocked and saddened to learn of Richard’s passing. I really enjoyed working with Richard and his good humour, commitment to local residents and cross-party engagement on environmental and many other issues always shone through.

“He will be sadly missed at Stroud District Council, and I’d like to extend my sympathy to his family and fellow Labour councillors, as well as to his colleagues and friends in the communities of the Severn Ward.”

Cllr Adrian Oldman, coordinator of Stroud District Green Party, said: “I would wholeheartedly echo Catherine’s sentiments about Richard. He was a thoroughly committed champion of the environment, a pragmatist, and an extremely hard working Labour activist. I’d like to send my sincere condolences to Richard’s family, friends and his Labour Party colleagues.”

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This is untrue.

What actually happened during the Budget setting was this:

Greens asked for amendments to the budget to give £420,000 to social and environmental projects. The Tories accepted our amendments.

Labour also asked for an amendment – to have £550,000 made available for councillor funding (which could have been used – as David Drew has done in the past – for community hubs).

The Tories rejected this amendment, and the Greens abstained as there was by then no money available for the amendment, because all of the pot had been allocated (to Green and jointly agreed amendments).

As there was no alternative budget on the table, Greens voted for the budget, since we’d got everything we’d asked for.

Since then, the Tories have found a spare £20,000 per councillor, and reinstated the councillor funding scheme anyway.

To repeat, Greens did NOT vote against the Labour amendment and we certainly did not vote to cut hub funding.

Click here to read the relevant minutes, where the relevant pages are 15-22.

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Stroud District Green Party has named its candidates for the Gloucestershire County Council elections on May 1.

The party is standing candidates in all 11 divisions in Stroud District, and is confident that it can increase the number of Green seats on GCC (currently four).

The Green candidates are as follows:

Bisley & Painswick: Cllr Gary Luff, district councillor for Painswick;

Haresfield & Upton: John Patient;

Stroud Central: Cllr Natalie Rothwell-Warn, district councillor for Stroud Slade;

Stonehouse: Tom Jarman;

Rodborough & Cainscross: Cllr Craig Horrocks, town councillor for Farmhill & Paganhill;

Minchinhampton: Cllr Chloe Turner, county and district councillor for Minchinhampton;

Nailsworth: Cllr Gill Thomas, district councillor for Minchinhampton;

Dursley: Dr Richard Dean;

Hardwicke & Severn: Kerri Tyler;

Cam Valley: Cllr Liz Hillary, town councillor for Stroud Central;

Wotton: Cllr Sue Fenton, town councillor for Stroud Trinity.

More details about each Green candidate can be found here: https://stroud.greenparty.org.uk/your-green-candidates-cc/

In addition, there will be at least seven Greens standing in other parts of the county.

The list of candidates from all parties: https://www.stroud.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/elections/gloucestershire-county-council-elections-and-stroud-central-district-ward-by-election-thursday-1-may-2025/other-notices

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Gerald was a significant figure in SDGP’s elections successes over a number of years in the 2010s, serving as both Elections Agent and Campaign Manager, as well as standing as a candidate at District, County and Parliamentary level. He introduced EARS (Election Agents Record System) to the local party, spending many hours slaving over the computer, while also being out and about organising campaigns.

He managed the Party’s first successful County campaign, when Sarah Lunnon was elected, and worked for Sarah through her two terms of term of office as a Green County Councillor. Gerald was also a passionate campaigner against the incinerator (commissioned by the Tory County Council) and chaired the GlosVAIN campaign group. 

Gerald would have loved to see more Greens elected to the County Council and Sue, his wife, hopes that this donation will go a small way towards helping to achieve that result in 2025.

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This will be the second time that Cate has stood for election to SDC. In the May 2024 local elections she came a close second: the results were David Drew (Labour) 408, Cate James-Hodges (Green) 326, Susan Cursham (Conservative) 70.

The by-election is being held due to David Drew’s recent unexpected resignation from Stroud District Council and from his seats on Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) and Stroud Town Council.

Cate James-Hodges works as the political assistant to the 22-strong Green group that leads Stroud District Council. She has been a member of the Stroud District Youth Council since 2019 and was its Leader for two years until June 2024.

These roles have given her wide ranging public speaking and communication experience as an elected officer, an understanding of how councils operate and make policy, and experience of connecting with individuals and groups in the local community on the delivery of local services.

She won the 2023 Stroud Town Council Young Person of the Year award.

Cate said: “I came so close last May to winning the Stroud Central seat. The results showed that there is enormous support for the Greens in Central Stroud. On the campaign trail, residents often told me they would welcome a change from the stereotypical perception they have of local politicians. There was appetite among the voters for a younger councillor who has energy, enthusiasm and lives in the ward.”

If elected, Cate will get involved in SDC’s work on climate and nature action, community services and housing. She would also like to see more council-run recreation facilities, and measures to improve safety for women, and will work to encourage more young people to vote.

The Greens are also fielding a candidate for the Stroud Central GCC seat, which was also occupied by David Drew until the Labour Party decided that he would not be standing for re-election this year. The Green candidate is Cllr Natalie Rothwell-Warn, who is the district councillor for Slade ward (pictured, right, with Cate).

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The Green Leaders of Forest of Dean District Council and Stroud District Council have confirmed that they remain open to considering the options for one or two unitary councils in Gloucestershire. 

The proposals setting out the current options about how local government in the county should be reorganised, were submitted to the Government on Friday (March 21).

Cllr Adrian Birch, Leader of Forest of Dean District Council, said: “We are open to considering all the options for new unitary councils and supporting the one which gives the best future for our local communities.

“In recent weeks, there’s been much discussion about the one-unitary and two-unitary council proposals, but it’s too early to decide which one to go for, in the absence of more evidence about their impact on local services and democratic representation. Wide community and stakeholder engagement will also be essential to inform our final decisions ahead of the deadline in November.” 

Cllr Catherine Braun, Leader of Stroud District Council, added: “The bigger picture for devolution, and arguably the more important decision for Gloucestershire, is which strategic authority we want to align with, as that’s where any additional powers and funding will be secured for the county. All the evidence we’ve seen so far points to Gloucestershire joining the West of England Combined Authority (WECA).

“This would allow us to stay connected to our regional capital in Bristol and to remain within the South West region. We have strong ties to WECA through alignment of our economic sectors, joint projects, and our shared West Country identity. This alignment would also build on the work of the Western Gateway pan-regional partnership, which strengthened working across the West of England region and Wales.”

Both the Forest of Dean and Stroud district councils have agreed to consider any future unitary council options in relation to a set of principles, in addition to the Government’s tests for financial viability.

These principles include: maintaining delivery of council services at a local level; securing economic prosperity which meets the needs of all, particularly the most vulnerable; a focus on long-term effectiveness not just short-term savings; protection of the environment with ambitious nature recovery and climate action; recognition of our strong local identities; support for parish and town councils and the voluntary and community sector; a balanced structure which does not exacerbate wealth imbalances; and the strengthening of local democratic input and representation.

NOTES

Forest of Dean District Council principles for Local Government Reorganisation

Item 9 – Forest of Dean District Council, para 4.3

https://meetings.fdean.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=120&MId=5583&Ver=4

Stroud District Council principles for Local Government Reorganisation

Item 3, paragraph 3.3

https://stroud.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=143&MId=1587&Ver=4

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Stroud District Green Party has welcomed the “robust” response of Stroud District Council to the government inspectors who proposed withdrawal of the Local Plan last month.

The letter from SDC addresses in detail every aspect of the issues the inspectors raised about the Plan, says the council is “profoundly disappointed” at the inspectors’ continued advice to withdraw the Plan, and asks them to reconsider.

It emphasises that the conclusions the inspectors reached are flawed in many respects, the inspectors having “fundamentally misunderstood the factual position”. It accuses them of taking into account a legally irrelevant consideration in one example, and of misunderstanding the government’s policy approach.

Cllr Chloe Turner said: “The purpose of a Local Plan is to specify, through gathering all the evidence, undertaking surveys, and assessing transport issues and housing need, where new development should take place. The Local Plan process allows for community engagement, an evidence-based assessment of the options, and consideration of the needs of our local area.

“Without a Local Plan, it would be over to developers to determine what is built and where it goes, with limited power for the Council to challenge proposals for building in unsuitable locations.

“As the chief executive of SDC points out in her incisive and robust letter, many of the inspectors’ objections simply do not stand up to scrutiny. There are areas where the inspectors have clearly not fully understood what is a complex situation, and other areas where they have misinterpreted and misapplied their own policies. This is unacceptable when the issue is so vitally important to our communities. We want to know, in detail, what the inspectors did and didn’t find to be sound about the Plan.”

Cllr Turner thanked the local Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs for their support for the draft Local Plan for Stroud District, especially Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, who spoke at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (March 12).

She said: “Sir Geoffrey pointed out that the housing Government wants to see built in our area cannot take place without the necessary transport infrastructure, and called on the Prime Minister to make infrastructure investment a priority. I hope the Prime Minister and Housing Minister will listen and support our efforts, so that we can finally get the Local Plan over the line.”

The letter from SDC can be seen here:

SDC Response to the Inspectors, 3 March 2025

https://www.stroud.gov.uk/environment/planning-and-building-control/planning-strategy/stroud-district-local-plan-review/local-plan-examination/examination-library

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown’s comment can be heard at 23 mins 40 secs here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00290xc/prime-ministers-questions-12032025)

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