Brighton and Hove Greens have elected a new leader and two deputies from their depleted ranks.
Steve Davis, 57, a driving instructor who represents Preston Park, will be the Green leader of the opposition on Brighton and Hove City Council.
The two deputy leaders of the seven-strong group will be Pete West and Sue Shanks. The Green group is the second-largest on the council. Labour has 38 out of the 54 seats while the Conservatives have six and there are three Independents.
Councillor West, 58, is the chief executive of a wood recycling charity, who was first elected in 1996. He represents the new Round Hill ward.
He has chaired the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee and served as mayor of Brighton and Hove.
Councillor Shanks, 67, who represents West Hill and North Laine, spent her career in youth work, as a youth work manager and tutor on university youth work and community work qualifying courses.
She was first elected in 2011 and chaired the council’s Health and Wellbeing Board until the local elections last week. She previously served as deputy leader of the council.
The Green Party said: “Unlike other groups, where elections are done only by councillors behind closed doors, all local Green Party members are entitled to vote for the leadership of their party.
“The party met on Monday evening (8 May) and voted overwhelmingly in favour of the new team.”
Newly elected convenor, Councillor Steve Davis, said: “I am proud and excited to be leading this fantastic team of Greens.
“Our group contains councillors that have years and decades of experience as well as new councillors with fresh ideas and perspectives.
“As campaigners and representatives of the city, our responsibility is now to fight for what the people of Brighton and Hove need, whether from the Labour council or the Tory government.
“People across the country are facing unprecedented times and there is every reason to think that economic and environmental crises will only get worse.
“Our job is to stand with people and champion their opposition to the problems they face and to work across our communities to find a better path forward.”
A car hating driving instructor?
Somewhere in a parallel universe far away, it all makes sense
I’ve spoken to a few driving instructors now, we get to take multiple exams as you can imagine in my profession, and many do share the viewpoint that cars are a necessary evil for many and that driving tests are way too easy, since the gold standard should be to the System of Car Control.
OMG one of the three ‘withdean greens’ whose approach was epitomised by, and probably one of the main reasons for the downfall of the BH greens. Someone who ousted one of the most respected, certainly most established fellow green councillors by re-standing in their ward rather then defending their own- which they knew they’d loose. Now leader. No lessons learnt or no one else left/prepared to to take the job, or both?
I had cause to converse with Steve Davis when he was in Withdean .
The words ‘arrogant’, ‘condescending’ and ‘ignorant’ are three adjectives I would use to describe him. The others are unprintable.
We can only hope these last remaining fake-Green councillors aren’t allowed anywhere near council committees.
Councillor West – very difficult to work with when he was mayor – also threw his toys out of the pram when on the ETS committee. It was his idea to put a cycle lane around the Palace Pier roundabout during the Pandemic – like an opportunistic infection – and that decision brought all the public transport to a standstill in the city centre.
His duplicated seafront cycle lanes remain however, displacing beachfront visitor parking, and forever slowing up city commuter and essential traffic flow, in favour of absolutely nobody. This was arguably the Greens being stitched up by Boris. Ooh, extra money! Let’s spend it on what we[ve always fantasised about!
Lots of us love cycle lanes, but with the Greens it’s any excuse to close a road or to slow up public transport or a cross-city artery route. Where was the city-wide transport strategy?
Councillor Davis is a persuasive if bullying speaker, making the perfect new leader for the dogmatic Greens, – and replacing the wet blanket that was Phelim McSpafferty. Davies famously blames Tory cuts for everything – whilst quietly wasting money via the Climate Change fund on a whole series of unwanted vanity projects.
Under the Greens, contracts were awarded to so-called green cycling companies, where our money then paid for their hire bikes or road-side bike sheds which residents have to rent – and from which the council then got no income. Indeed the council actually lost income from removed parking spaces. That’s what economists call a ‘lose-lose situation’.
This was shocking to see. The old push bikes were trashed but, as far as the residents are concerned, those new hire bikes are unaffordable. So Beryl is a private-owned business now bankrolled off the back of ou climate change slush fund.
Collectively, the Greens are going to have to come up with some real green policies to replace all their failed fake ones. And they really need to start shouldering the blame for their appalling decisions. The idea that you impose an LTN on an area like Hanover – which is already an LTN – would be comical, had they not already wasted so much of our money on the idea which has no perceived benefits for that area and which makes all transport journeys longer.
The Greens’ decision to close our public toilets was the final straw. In the name of ‘active travel’ I personally try and walk everywhere but sooner or later, on a stroll through the city centre, you need a pee. I was at the funfair at the Level the other day and there was/is no public toilet open, and so people were visibly squatting behind bushes in the children’s playground.
How on earth did they let basic services get this bad?
If Brighton is now seen as an extension of Glastonbury, then can we at least have some composting toilets?
Can cllr Davis explain how the Beryl bike scheme cost £13m ? How does he justify this as a cost to the local taxpayer?
Previously the Greens were keen to stress the importance of giving authority to the ‘yoof’ in their party (remember Amy Heley!).
Now They seem to have elected unstable dodderers to the leading positions.
Leader or convenor?
L sign for the driving instructor.
At least the main person responsible for pushing thru VG3, will still be in a position where they can be held responsible when it all goes wrong
I thought they’d select the charmless, charisma challenged, social media insulting, hypocrite driving instructor as their leader – they didn’t have much talent to choose from.
After all, as they say, those than can, do, those that can’t, teach, and this extends to, those that can’t teach, become Green Party councillors.
It is like a breath of fresh air, now that the Greens have been kicked out.
But there is so much that Labour will have to sort out, following the chaos and mess created by the Greens. I just hope they are up to it. It is time the city was brought back to being the beautifull and welcoming place it used to be, for people of all ages (not just the students and “yoof”).
Students are generally always going to be a private venture; with the two universities nearby, this is always going to be an important aspect.
For your regular residents, I feel there is a lot of work to be done in creating a viable affordable landscape in Brighton. Limiting AirBnB and secondary homes are likely to be key targets, as these are major factors that influence many other aspects of the city.
One needs a firm foundation of a home, social or privately-owned, before one really can effectively tackle anything else.
We are seeing stagnation of population growth in Brighton and school places being unfilled. I fundamentally believe this stems from the lack of affordability of homes in Brighton.
Chaos and mess?…after less than 3 years in no overall control when they had to take over the reins from Labour who were in a mess! And led this city through a global pandemic, massive cuts and cost of living crisis. Have you read the Labour pledges? Not really that different from the Greens. Labour ran a successful smear campaign that bent the truth to breaking point and pulled the wool over many eyes. We have lost some talented councillors who gave a lot to this city.
You make a reasonable point about individual councillors whom have dedicated a lot of time and effort to their constituents regardless of the flag they fly which is very much a risk of identity politics.
There will have been a number of people who have voted purely based on the party, doubtless.
This is just normal for many Green Councillors. Never mind we have sent them on their way now. Let’s see what Labour can do and if they don’t stop the deterioration of the city centre we will kick them out next. They have a borrowed vote.
A perfectly reasonable standpoint to have, if the council aren’t working for you, then they should rightly lose your vote and of course, vice versa.
Let’s see – we’ve just been absolutely annihilated in the polls. Let’s choose the most hated and nasty Green councillor as our leader. That should help change the public’s perception of us!
Oh! I just realised…Cllr. Davis taught me how to drive several years ago, gosh that little VK Up was gutless going up the racecourse! He was always strongly politically minded back then too.
This is a curious decision that suggests the Green Party has learned nothing about dogma and arrogance.
Three of the Councillors who are responsible for the mess. Two of them also voted for the public funding of the loss making i360.
“Our job is to stand with people and champion their opposition to the problems they face and to work across our communities to find a better path forward.”
If the greens had actually stood ‘with the people’ rather than totally ignoring the wishes and needs of the vast majority of the electorate and merely championing the demands of tiny majorities perhaps they wouldn’t have been nearly wiped out in the recent election.
And a ‘better path’ doesn’t just have to mean cycle paths…