The City Councillors
- Mancroft – Amanda Fox
Mancroft – Amanda Fox
I worked for the RSPCA wildlife department for fourteen years. Wildlife gives me so much joy and I am passionate about increasing biodiversity in the city. It is well known that access to nature improves our mental and physical health and I feel strongly that every child should have access to nature, on their doorstep, as a given not a privilege. Nature provides the food we eat, the water we drink and the air that we breath so it must be prioritised in every decision. I want Norwich to be a leading light in reversing the ecological crisis and to see loopholes, that allow exploitation of our natural environment, closed up.
As a working class woman, I grew up aware of social inequality. That gap, between the wealthiest and the poorest in our society, has widened in my lifetime. That’s not okay and much creativity is stifled as a result, with people having to spend all their time scraping a living. I support a Universal Basic Income so that every person in Norwich has a chance to find their field of genius and thrive.
My work, as a homeless person’s support worker, brings me into contact with some of the most socially deprived people in our city. Social deprivation is the spawning ground of poor health, criminality and addiction and leads to sad tales of damaged lives. It is also, ultimately, more expensive for the taxpayer.
It is important to me that we tackle the route causes of premature death, antisocial behavior, and crime in our city, such as poverty, lack of community, and lack of mental health support
As well as being the right thing to do, this would, long term, be the most cost effective thing to do.I support introducing safe using spaces, for drug users, which could reduce deaths from overdose, create earlier intervention by bringing users into contact with support services, take drug use out of stairwells and dark alleys, and take pressure off the police service.
I believe that a healing approach, to many of societies ills, is long overdue and our city will truly flourish when no one is left behind.
- Mancroft – Martin Schmierer
Mancroft – Martin Schmierer
Martin grew up in Norwich and has lived here since 1994. In 2015 he was elected as councillor for Mancroft Ward and has represented the city centre since then. As a councillor, he has worked to make streets safer by working with the police to tackle anti-social behaviour and drug use. He also led the Green Party’s campaign to stop the spread of gambling venues in deprived areas of the city and has a proven track record of standing up to certain big developers whose proposals could have ruined parts of Norwich’s historic centre.
Before getting involved in party politics, Martin researched the role local government played on public health in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow.
In his free time, Martin enjoys going to the cinema, cooking and taking walks in the Norfolk countryside. He is an avid Norwich City fan.
- Mancroft -Jamie Osborn
Mancroft -Jamie Osborn
Jamie is a city councillor and county councillor for Mancroft Ward. Jamie is a highly active campaigner and advocate for the city centre, which he wants to be a safe and pleasant place to live, now and for generations to come. He has helped residents submit their views on developments like Anglia Square and has supported community groups in improving green space in their areas.
Jamie regularly talks to the police about residents’ concerns. He has been working to ensure better use of CCTV, the installation of security doors in residential blocks and faster action on graffiti and fly-tipping.
Jamie listens to residents’ views on parking and traffic and has campaigned to improve public transport and air quality, including helping residents in the city centre campaign against speeding and improved bus services.
He is an advocate for trying to end homelessness through improving access to affordable housing, as well as giving everyone security through a Universal Basic Income.
Jamie believes that now, more than ever, we need young people in local politics as we face the massive threat of a climate emergency. Jamie has taken action to bring climate change to the top of the political agenda. He has campaigned against the Norwich Western Link road and wants to bring a Green New Deal to the city. He believes in local solutions to big problems and has been working hard to support initiatives that support the local economy in a sustainable way.
- Nelson lucy galvin
Nelson – Lucy Galvin
Councillor Lucy Galvin Lucy Galvin is a trained journalist and specialist in public engagement in nature protection. Having worked in newspapers and magazines in Devon, Hong Kong, London and Zimbabwe she settled in Norwich 28 years ago and raised a family here as well as working as media and communications manager at the Broads Authority. Alongside this, as a consultant in communications for protected areas such as national parks and nature parks, she led a number of publications and studies for the Europarc Federation in areas ranging from the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine to the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland, focussing on topics including sustainable tourism, communications and public engagement.
Currently she works for the Norfolk Coast Partnership, an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), and is a founder member of national working groups on protected landscape action on climate change and arts in the landscape. A strong believer in equality of access and the importance of urban nature, she is chair of a thriving Norwich community centre, and a founder member of community group Friends of Train Wood and Marriott’s Way.
She was drawn to the Green party by the need to take action on austerity and the climate crisis. Lucy served one term as a councillor for Wensum from 2011 to 2015 and was elected as a councillor for Nelson in 2021. She is currently the leader of the Green Group on Norwich City Council.
- Nelson – Hannah Hoechner
Nelson – Hannah Hoechner
Hannah is a lecturer in Education and International Development at the University of East Anglia. She grew up in Germany, and lived in Oxford, where she did her PhD, and in Brussels, where she met her partner, with whom she moved to Norwich to take up her current post at UEA. Since moving to Norwich, she has been involved in different local groups campaigning for action on the climate and biodiversity emergency, including at UEA where she is an environmental officer in her School and the Treasurer of the UEA Allotment Club.
Her professional career as a researcher in International Development has led her to spend time in communities at the frontlines of climate change, including in Nigeria and Senegal. This highlighted for her how interconnected climate justice and social and racial justice are, and that we can’t achieve one without the other.
As a mother of a small child, she feels acutely that there is no time to lose to address the emergencies of impending climate breakdown and massive loss of life-sustaining biodiversity. She is passionate about improving air quality, protecting trees and wildlife, and making streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
- Nelson – Julie Young
Nelson – Julie Young
Councillor Julie Young I work at the University of East Anglia, where I have been based for nearly 20 years a researcher in the Centre for Research on Children and Families and lecturer in Psychology and Social Work. I have played a key role in a number of important research projects relating to vulnerable families, adopted children and care-experienced young people. I am also an experienced trainer and consultant and have facilitated numerous workshops and events with legal and social work professionals and adoptive parents across the UK.
Prior to moving to UEA, I worked for nine years as a teacher, head of department and pastoral tutor in two secondary schools and a college of further education. In a voluntary capacity I have worked as a therapeutic counsellor and have been a parent governor at three different schools in Norfolk. I have also been longstanding, active member of the ‘Woodcraft Folk’, an educational movement for young people promoting sustainability, care for the environment, peace, and international friendship.
I am a keen cyclist and enjoy reading, camping and long distance walks in the countryside. I am a parent to three (now adult) children.
I am passionate about defending the human right to peaceful protest, to cycle everywhere peacefully and safely, to live in affordable, secure and well-insulated housing, to travel by affordable and efficient public transport and have easy, free and protected access to the countryside.
- Sewell – Gillian Francis
Sewell – Gillian Francis
I have worked in Norwich as a tutor, teacher in both private and mainstream schools, and more recently, with vulnerable and SEND young people outside the school environment. Alongside this, I work in performance production, community arts and as a visual artist.
My daughter has learning disabilities and lives in residential care, and I am sole carer of my granddaughter, who has developmental delay. This life experience gives me insights that I hope will enable me to help others. I believe that we can all make a difference by starting small and working on the things close to us that we can change.
In 2020, I was setting up MPC (https://makeplayconnect.co.uk/) when the Covid pandemic hit. This experience demonstrated what could be achieved by a community. I co-founded the Norfolk Scrubs Volunteers and coordinated the Norfolk Scrubs Hub. With over 1400 volunteers across Norfolk, we produced and delivered thousands of sets of scrubs to frontline workers, and created a county wide support network that helped isolated individuals feel connected and have a purpose during lockdowns.
I believe the Green Party is creating strong inclusive communities able to make positive change. As a Green Party councillor, I am committed to representing the concerns of my local community and help them develop projects that benefit and empower them. I will continue to work with residents to transform the Angel Road school into a community hub and I will develop my work with minority groups and families with SEND children, with a focus on education. - Sewell -Gary Champion
Sewell – Gary Champion
Councillor Gary Champion Gary is a proponent of leaving a sustainable legacy for our children and working locally to build a resilient city that works for all its citizens. He has worked as a teacher for over a decade and during this time campaigned to reform education, both as a parent and as a school governor.
As a teacher Gary campaigned for his school to install solar panels, promoted litter picking and raised the agenda of environmental stewardship.
He is concerned with local issues, such as the state of our parks and streets, but he also knows that the solution to many of our global ills, such as climate change and the extinction crisis, need to be addressed locally too.
Gary believes that Norwich City Council’s concentration of political power in the hands of one party ill-serves our fine city. Gary has not run for any political office before, but has an articulate and passionate voice, which he intends to use to hold the local administration to account.
Living in Sewell ward, Gary stands by his convictions and believes that there is nowhere better to create the change we want to see in the world than in our own neighbourhoods. He considers it important that neighbourhoods are represented by people who live in them.
- Sewell Alex Catt
Sewell – Alex Catt
Councillor Alex Catt I moved to Norwich seven years ago, moving here to study Law at the University of East Anglia and falling in love with the city that I am now proud to call my home. Following this, I worked in hospitality management and now as a campaign organiser. I previously volunteered with St John Ambulance for over 5 years.
In my free time, I like to explore the Norfolk countryside, work on my collection of nearly 300 houseplants and spend time with my pets.
My priorities are to help improve the quality and accessibility of housing across Norwich, protect our green spaces from destruction and anti-social behaviour as well as making Norwich a more inclusive city for LGBTIQA+ people.
- Thorpe Hamlet – Ash Haynes
Thorpe Hamlet – Ash Haynes
Since her election in 2021, Ash has been working on important local issues in Thorpe Hamlet, including saving trees, asking for improved standards in housing, and dealing with anti-social behaviour and traffic issues. She was previously a councillor representing Town Close from 2010 to 2018. During this time, she sat on the scrutiny and licensing committees.
She now sits on the audit committee and is the shadow portfolio holder for housing.
As a parent of two young children, Ash is passionate about safer streets and improving air quality, as well as proper community resources like spaces for children to play. During her time as a councillor, she has also campaigned to improve safety for pedestrians, improve parking problems, and for inappropriate planning applications to be turned down.
- Thorpe Hamlet – Ben Price
Thorpe Hamlet – Ben Price
Ben has represented Thorpe Hamlet on the city council since 2012. With a strong community focus, he has worked alongside residents to solve local problems, while trying to effect change across Norwich at City Hall. As a professional gardener, Ben understands the importance of biodiversity and the impacts of climate change on the natural and human worlds.
As a city councillor, he has supported the creation of a community group at Old Library Wood which transformed a run-down park with anti-social behaviour problems into a safe and friendly space. He is now helping to establish a similar group at James Stuart Gardens, bringing together older and younger people to protect wildlife and enjoy the outdoor area.
Elected to Norfolk County Council in 2021, Ben urged the authority to declare a Climate Emergency at his very first meeting. Unfortunately, the Green motion wasn’t passed, but Ben has been able to solve more issues in Thorpe Hamlet – particularly some related to traffic – by representing the ward at a city and county level.
Ben recently gained council support for giving most roads within Norwich’s outer ring road a 20mph speed limit and has fought to protect local trees through the planning system. He has campaigned against a western link road being built near Norwich and would like to see air quality improved for children through traffic-free zones outside schools. He considers poor air quality a serious health concern and would like to see it at the centre of decision making, with a Norfolk-wide transport plan put in place.
He has been a member of the Licensing Committee since first elected, instrumental in developing the Stakeholders’ Forum, a Green Party initiative with the aim of improving the late-night economy and reducing anti-social behaviour. Having completed a local investigation and reporting his findings to the Government Minister for Licensing at Westminster, he led Norwich City Council’s introduction of a Cumulative Impact Policy, which capped the number of bars in the Late Night Activity Zone.
Along the Wensum, Ben organised a river tidy, removing rubbish and helping to highlight plastic pollution and the importance of the waterway. He also worked with local residents to build a successful campaign to oppose the proposed construction of a straw-burning incinerator power station known as Generation Park, located in Thorpe Hamlet.
Anti-social behaviour is, unfortunately, a prominent issue in parts of Thorpe Hamlet and Ben has been involved in improving this situation for residents. He has fostered strong relationships with the local policing team and, at the invitation of the police, chairs the Safer Neighbourhood Action Panel (SNAP) for the city centre and Thorpe Hamlet.
At City Hall, Ben chairs the Audit committee, monitoring the way the council carries out its business. Here he has focused on governance, transparency and risk management, challenging the Labour administration on its investment strategy, introducing training for members of the committee to improve overall performance and directing investigations into the governance of the council’s commercial company through the work of the internal audit team. He wants to see an improvement in governance so that the council’s money is spent more wisely.
As Vice Chair of the Mousehold Conservators, Ben spent a number of years working alongside council officers on the newly-agreed ten-year vision for Mousehold Heath, helping to create a focus on biodiversity and community participation. With a deep love of nature, he employs the practical knowledge of a professional gardener to further his aims of looking after Norwich’s special green areas and protecting trees and other wildlife in the city.
- Thorpe Hamlet – Josh Worley
Thorpe Hamlet – Josh Worley
I am an experienced local councillor who cares passionately about community and the environment.
I live in Thorpe Hamlet with my fianceé, Jade and young daughter, Grace, and have been actively involved with many projects and organisations in Norwich for many years. Most recently as President of the Norwich Market Traders’ Association, I fought to protect and improve Norwich’s historic market, including helping spearhead a new project to make Norwich Market, Britain’s first zero-waste market.
As a small business owner, I understand the need to run an efficient organisation, but as a local Councillor and community advocate, also appreciate the role local government must play in helping support residents to live happy, healthy lives whilst also improving the world we live in.
Having been on a political journey since the age of 12, I have experienced political viewpoints from all ends of the spectrum, but after allowing myself to think independently, I am fully committed to the Green Party: its ethos and its goals to build a fairer, greener country.
- Wensum – Liam Calvert
Wensum – Liam Calvert
I have lived in Norwich for the last 13 years having grown up locally. I am a recent ex-science teacher, where I was a workplace trades union representative and 2nd in department. I have twin 5-year-olds who attend a local school where I am a governor. I have chaired Wensum Residents’ Association, based at the community centre on Hotblack Road.
Together we have had a number of successes in the community. Through campaigning we got improvements to two local road junctions, allowing pedestrians to cross safely. We now have a 20mph speed limit. We are going to be one of a small number of areas involved in a ‘school streets’ trial. We utilised over 100 volunteers to provide assistance during the first lock down carrying out many hundreds of tasks and deliveries. Last Christmas we delivered presents donated by the community to those in most need at the local school. We have put on community events such as street parties and Halloween and Christmas trails. We have ensured that the community centre is financially secure with a solid volunteer base. We run regular litter picks in our local parks where we have secured large amounts of funding.
The County Councillors
- Mancroft -Jamie Osborn
Mancroft -Jamie Osborn
Jamie is a city councillor and county councillor for Mancroft Ward. Jamie is a highly active campaigner and advocate for the city centre, which he wants to be a safe and pleasant place to live, now and for generations to come. He has helped residents submit their views on developments like Anglia Square and has supported community groups in improving green space in their areas.
Jamie regularly talks to the police about residents’ concerns. He has been working to ensure better use of CCTV, the installation of security doors in residential blocks and faster action on graffiti and fly-tipping.
Jamie listens to residents’ views on parking and traffic and has campaigned to improve public transport and air quality, including helping residents in the city centre campaign against speeding and improved bus services.
He is an advocate for trying to end homelessness through improving access to affordable housing, as well as giving everyone security through a Universal Basic Income.
Jamie believes that now, more than ever, we need young people in local politics as we face the massive threat of a climate emergency. Jamie has taken action to bring climate change to the top of the political agenda. He has campaigned against the Norwich Western Link road and wants to bring a Green New Deal to the city. He believes in local solutions to big problems and has been working hard to support initiatives that support the local economy in a sustainable way.
- Nelson -Paul Neale
Nelson -Paul Neale
Councillor Paul Neale Paul is a dedicated ward councillor, tackling the various issues that affect residents. He has wide experience outside the political arena having been in several management roles and running successful businesses. At a time when most people retire, Paul continues with the political challenges that face us all especial climate change and social issues.
Paul was a City Councillor for 6 years and the shadow housing portfolio holder for the Green Group at Norwich City Council. In 2014, it was his motion that paved the way for the council to build social housing at the award-winning Passivhaus development in the city. More recently, with his professional knowledge of housing, he was able to hold the Labour administration to account in its failure of management and governance of their building company when a £6 million loss came to light. He has also been Chair of the Audit Committee, scrutinising the council’s governance, transparency, and risk management.
In 2021 Paul decided to step down as a City Councillor to devote his time to the County Council and was elected as the Nelson District County Councillor in May 2021. He is the Green Group spokesperson for planning, highways, children’s services, and adult services. In the ward he is pushing for and delivering several important improvements in the highways and environment for the benefit of its residents.
- Thorpe Hamlet – Ben Price
Thorpe Hamlet – Ben Price
Ben has represented Thorpe Hamlet on the city council since 2012. With a strong community focus, he has worked alongside residents to solve local problems, while trying to effect change across Norwich at City Hall. As a professional gardener, Ben understands the importance of biodiversity and the impacts of climate change on the natural and human worlds.
As a city councillor, he has supported the creation of a community group at Old Library Wood which transformed a run-down park with anti-social behaviour problems into a safe and friendly space. He is now helping to establish a similar group at James Stuart Gardens, bringing together older and younger people to protect wildlife and enjoy the outdoor area.
Elected to Norfolk County Council in 2021, Ben urged the authority to declare a Climate Emergency at his very first meeting. Unfortunately, the Green motion wasn’t passed, but Ben has been able to solve more issues in Thorpe Hamlet – particularly some related to traffic – by representing the ward at a city and county level.
Ben recently gained council support for giving most roads within Norwich’s outer ring road a 20mph speed limit and has fought to protect local trees through the planning system. He has campaigned against a western link road being built near Norwich and would like to see air quality improved for children through traffic-free zones outside schools. He considers poor air quality a serious health concern and would like to see it at the centre of decision making, with a Norfolk-wide transport plan put in place.
He has been a member of the Licensing Committee since first elected, instrumental in developing the Stakeholders’ Forum, a Green Party initiative with the aim of improving the late-night economy and reducing anti-social behaviour. Having completed a local investigation and reporting his findings to the Government Minister for Licensing at Westminster, he led Norwich City Council’s introduction of a Cumulative Impact Policy, which capped the number of bars in the Late Night Activity Zone.
Along the Wensum, Ben organised a river tidy, removing rubbish and helping to highlight plastic pollution and the importance of the waterway. He also worked with local residents to build a successful campaign to oppose the proposed construction of a straw-burning incinerator power station known as Generation Park, located in Thorpe Hamlet.
Anti-social behaviour is, unfortunately, a prominent issue in parts of Thorpe Hamlet and Ben has been involved in improving this situation for residents. He has fostered strong relationships with the local policing team and, at the invitation of the police, chairs the Safer Neighbourhood Action Panel (SNAP) for the city centre and Thorpe Hamlet.
At City Hall, Ben chairs the Audit committee, monitoring the way the council carries out its business. Here he has focused on governance, transparency and risk management, challenging the Labour administration on its investment strategy, introducing training for members of the committee to improve overall performance and directing investigations into the governance of the council’s commercial company through the work of the internal audit team. He wants to see an improvement in governance so that the council’s money is spent more wisely.
As Vice Chair of the Mousehold Conservators, Ben spent a number of years working alongside council officers on the newly-agreed ten-year vision for Mousehold Heath, helping to create a focus on biodiversity and community participation. With a deep love of nature, he employs the practical knowledge of a professional gardener to further his aims of looking after Norwich’s special green areas and protecting trees and other wildlife in the city.