The Green Party has named a new candidate for the upcoming West of England Metro Mayor election, after the previous candidate stepped down to concentrate on her job helping to run the city council.
Back in November last year, the Greens named Cllr Heather Mack as their Metro Mayor candidate at this May’s West of England elections. But now, they have announced that Cllr Mack has stepped down from the candidacy and Cllr Mary Page is their candidate instead.
Back in December, Bristol Live reported that Cllr Mack, who is also the deputy leader of Bristol City Council, had revealed her support for a new tram network, and would be working to create that if elected in the WECA election. Now, though, the Green Party has announced she has ‘stood down from her candidacy to allow her to focus on her council role’.
The new candidate is Mary Page, who stood for the Green Party in the Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston ward in the May 2024 city council elections and lost to Labour, and then stood as the Green Party parliamentary candidate in Bristol North West in the July 2024 General Election, and was one of several Green candidates to jump into second place behind Labour.
She announced she wanted to be the Green Party’s choice as Metro Mayor candidate back in October, but Heather Mack was selected by the party instead. In the last West of England elections in 2021, the Greens came third with 22 per cent of the vote, behind the Conservatives with 29 per cent and Labour with 33 per cent.
A former Lib Dem, Ms Page led the ‘It’s Our City Bristol’ campaign, which successfully secured a referendum in 2022, and successfully persuaded voters to scrap the role of a directly elected mayor running Bristol City Council. The campaigner said that was the “first leg of a journey to transform our local and regional democratic systems”.
Now, she has been named as the Green’s metro mayor candidate at the second attempt. “It’s my pleasure and honour to be the Green Party candidate in the West of England mayoral campaign. Our party offers ‘Real Hope and Real Change’ to all those who feel they have lost their political home or lost faith in our democratic system,” she said.
“I would like to thank Heather for the contribution she’s made to this campaign – I really look forward to working with her in her role as Deputy Leader. This is such an important moment for our country and our region. Labour is just not delivering the practical, positive changes that are so desperately needed to make people’s lives easier day to day.
“We need housing that builds rather than breaks communities, the opportunity to train and upskill for permanent, quality jobs and sustainable transport for our cities and our rural areas. The Green Party is committed to those things and that’s why I am so delighted to be representing us in this West of England regional mayor campaign,” she added.
Labour has selected former Bristol city council cabinet member Helen Godwin as its candidate at the May metro mayor election. Current Labour metro mayor, who was first elected in 2021, is Dan Norris. He can’t stand again after being elected as the North East Somerset & Hanham MP at July’s election, and new Labour Party rules mean he can’t hold two elected jobs at the same time.