A team of early-rising Greens met at the Festival site, next to the Community Centre, ready to erect our wonderful gazebo. This engineering feat was accomplished in record time, and we began to set up our displays. And still there was no rain !

The theme of this year’s Festival was “The Wild West”. This presented us with a dilemma: we wanted to be fully engaged in the Festival, but we felt uncomfortable with this theme. After all, this period of U.S. history is notorious for genocide, environmental destruction, raw capitalism and racism. So we gave the theme a twist: our message promoted re-wilding! We adapted the traditional “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters, to read “Wanted: Alive and Thriving”, featuring a range of vulnerable plant and animal life, with explanations of how they can be protected. 

Our stall was very child-friendly: there was an “Identify the butterflies” competition, with prizes of de luxe bug hotels and nature-themed books. Children – and their parents – eagerly drew pictures of their favourite creatures and made frames for them. Take-away souvenirs keep the memories alive!

Meanwhile, adult visitors had an opportunity to read fact-sheets about our policies and also to chat to our local District Councillor, James Hogan.

And still there was no rain!

Our involvement in the Festival was hard work, but enjoyable. It was great for team-building and it brought us into contact with lots of interested people in Clanfield and nearby Horndean.

We are already looking ahead to next year’s Festival!  Put the date on your year-planner now!

The post “HERE COMES THE SUN…….” appeared first on East Hampshire Green Party.

Once again, we made big steps forward at the local elections on 1st May. 

Once again, we increased our total number of Councillors – now at 859.

Once again, we gained seats on more councils – now at 181.

But there is more to achieve.Be inspired ! Help us to inspire others ! 

Join us today in the growing movement for a fairer, sustainable society.

Follow this link to join the Green Party. 

The post JOIN THE GREEN PARTY TODAY! appeared first on East Hampshire Green Party.

But we have successfully raised our concerns at East Hampshire District, winning two important votes in the process.

On 24th April the two Green Party councillors (Ian James and James Hogan) won the council’s support for alternative ways to make this election fairer and more democratic.

i) The government has said that each candidate must pay £10,000 just to get their name on the ballot paper ! That’s a £5,000 deposit and a further £5,000 to get their message into a special booklet, to be distributed to all households. Stumping up £10,000 may not be a problem for parties which are funded by big business, fossil fuel billionaires or the trades unions. But smaller parties and capable independents could be put off by the cost. This financial burden would reduce the democracy of the election. Instead, the two Green Party councillors (Ian James – Liss, and James Hogan – Horndean Downs) proposed that the ‘entry fee’ should be lowered and that candidates should collect a minimum number of nominating signatures from voters. This would encourage greater participation and wider diversity of candidates, improving democracy. This motion won a majority of votes at East Hants Disrict Council. 

ii) In previous mayoral elections in London and elsewhere, an alternative to the discredited ‘first past the post’ voting system had been used. We saw in the 2024 general election that ‘first past the post’ produces bizarre outcomes, with the number of MPs elected for a party wildly out of proportion to their number of votes. For the 2026 mayoral election the Westminster government wants  to use ‘first past the post’. But this could easily result in the election of a mayor with only 20% of the vote – hardly democratic. So, the Green councillors have proposed using a fairer voting system, such as the ‘Supplementary Vote’, in which votes cast for a second-choice candidate are also counted.

Councillor James Hogan, who proposed the successful motions, explained: “These decisions will now be shared with the leader of the County Council, the local MPs and the relevant government minister, urging them to suppport the changes we recommend in order to make the election of a mayor more fair and more democratic.” He added: “I’m very proud that our two motions won support from the other parties – we firmly believe in co-operation in support of our principles”.

• Look out for our further coverage of this developing news story
• For more information contact Cllr Hogan at james.hogan@easthants.gov.uk.

The post Electing a Mayor – fair or foul ? appeared first on East Hampshire Green Party.

At its meeting in November 2024 Cllrs Ian James (Liss) and James Hogan (Horndean Downs) proposed a motion to change the council’s constitution so that it becomes gender neutral. Their motion was carried overwhelmingly. As a result, phrases which imply that maleness is the norm will be changed to phrases which do not specify a gender. So “chairman of the council” will become “chair of the council”. This will at last bring East Hants District Council into line with mainstream practice in today’s Britain – at least as regards this aspect of language use. Cllr Hogan explained: “The change will bring to an end the absurd expectation that we councillors should address a female colleague using bizarre phrases such as “Madam chairman.”

Cllr James, leader of the Green group on EHDC, said: “At my very first council meeting two years ago I was gobsmacked when the woman councillor chairing the meeting was called “chairman”. I could hardly believe that this sort of language was still being used. So I resolved then to get the council’s constitution changed.” On 24th April 2025 a full meeting of East Hants District Council finally voted to amend its constitution, consigning to ‘the dustbin of history’ outdated terms such as “chairman”, replacing them with gender-neutral language such as “chair”.

With only 2 Green councillors on a 43-strong council, this was a ‘David and Goliath’ challenge. But our Green councillors did it ! They won a majority of the votes.

Ian added: “It’s not an earth-shattering change. But change often comes in tiny steps. This is a tiny step for our council in the right direction for gender equality. And a commitment to gender equality lies at the heart of the Green Party’s vision.”

The post Greens lead District Council towards 21st century ! appeared first on East Hampshire Green Party.

These significant changes are already underway. There are two distinct elements to this process of change:

i)  local councils will be re-organised, each to cover larger areas with bigger populations;

ii) a new mayor will be elected to cover the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. 

At present, in most of Hampshire, we have three levels of local councils: county, district and parish. The Westminster government, supported by the councils, has decided to merge the county and district councils to create a single level of council – a “unitary council”. So, over the next couple of years Hampshire County Council and East Hampshire District Council will both disappear.

Hampshire already has three small unitary councils: Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton. The new unitary councils must each have at least 500,000 people, so these 3 smaller councils will also disappear. However, an exception may be made for the Isle of Wight, to reflect its geographical separateness.

Because the whole of Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight, has a population of about 2 million, it is likely that there will be 5 new unitary councils, although this is not certain. Discussions about the composition of each new unitary authority are currently taking place.

ii) The next step in the process will be to bring together the areas governed by the new unitary authorities to create a new regional authority headed by an elected mayor. This will be known as a County Combined Authority. It will have the power to make strategic decisions for the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, especially involving large-scale infrastructure planning.The Westminster government will transfer some of its decision-making powers to the new County Combined Authority and its Mayor. This is intended to bring accountability to a more local level. This is the process of devolution.

Normally, we would have been electing Councillors for Hampshire County Council in May 2025. However, because of the extra workload that the re-organisation is putting on local councils, the usual county council elections have been postponed. You will be electing the new mayor in 2026.

We, in the Green Party, feel strongly that some of the rules that have already been announced for the mayoral election are unfair and lacking in democracy. Our criticisms will appear on this website soon, along with our proposals to make this important election more democratic. 

The post LOCAL GOVERNMENT RE-ORGANISATION AND DEVOLUTION ARE COMING! appeared first on East Hampshire Green Party.