Marieanne Elliot

Tell us a little bit about yourself

I’m Marieanne Elliot and am standing in Gleadless Valley ward where I live. I’ve been in this ward for fifteen years and it’s where I’ve raised my family. I’m active in the community and believe strongly in grass-roots campaigning and local activism. The Green Party understands and supports the strength and importance of this. Greens fight for social equality, aswel as acting on the climate crisis, this is why I am motivated to represent my community and the Green Party.

What do you think makes a good local councillor?

Good Councillors work for the community, supporting local people, and acting on issues that are relevant to the local area.

Getting the necessary funding and services to the ward is really important, for this to happen it is necessary to have Councillors who genuinely care about the people and the area. Councillors who live in the area and/ or have close connections with the area are preferable.

Tell us three things you're aiming to focus on or achieve for your ward during your term as councillor

Helping to tackle the nature and climate emergency at a local level by working to make the ward more sustainable. Having conversations with residents and groups about what we can do locally and having regard for our green spaces, including working with local ecologists.

Listening to residents and community groups in the area. Supporting them by linking them with the Council, so we can all work together to make improvements which will have a positive impact on people’s lives. The new committee system should enable genuine consultation and participation and I’m looking forward to seeing the positive effects of this.

Working with local people to encourage social enterprise that really benefits our neighbourhoods. Promoting and supporting
skills and talents and training local people.

Tell us three things you're aiming to focus on or achieve for the city of Sheffield during your term as councillor

A sustainable environment requires new and sustainable businesses. I’d like to see more green jobs and skills. Our Green councillors have already been working on this and have made proposals about implementing large scale insulation to make homes warmer, healthier and affordable to run. I want to push that forward. More and more people are understanding how we need to shift to a low-carbon economy – the Council needs to play a leading role.

We need to make getting around Sheffield in a low-carbon or zero-carbon way easier. The Greens support active travel, the Clean Air Zone, pedestrianisation and pavement parking. Without Greens pushing forward these changes they would not be prioritised. We recognise that public transport needs to be much better for these changes to be delivered effectively for the benefit of everyone and hope that the new mayor of South Yorkshire will prioritise a more integrated, efficient and affordable public system for the region.

Social Care is a massive issue for the Council. We have more and more people needing care and the system isn’t getting the funding from Government it needs. The Council are building more care homes and sheltered housing, we need to ensure that these spaces provide for people in need with genuine care for their well- being. I am interested in exploring new ideas like social care cooperatives which help users and communities own the services they need.

Transport: “Air pollution contributes to 500 deaths a year in Sheffield. Living alongside a busy road carries the same risk as passively smoking 10 cigarettes a day.”. Supported by better public transport and disabled accessibility, do you think private motor traffic should eventually be excluded from Sheffield city centre?

• Yes
• Unsure
• No

If you'd like to add details on your position, please do so here

Yes, as far as possible but supporting the needs of businesses and those disabled people and others such as the elderly and vulnerable who need private motorised access.

We have to tackle Sheffield’s very serious air pollution problems that cause the early deaths of 500 people every year.  It should be possible to address this without penalising poorer and disadvantaged groups. I recognise that private e cars are beyond the means of many so we need an improved public transport system. The council should push the partnerships required to ensure that an adequate system is in place before bringing in the necessary restrictions on private transport.  Many European city centres are essentially pedestrianised and are great places to live and work and shop. There’s no reason why Sheffield can’t be the same. We just need the right kind of investment and transport.

Housing: "The introduction of Selective Licensing can bring widespread benefits to the local community. In particular it will ensure that all private rented property within the designated area is safe and well managed". Do you think Landlord Licensing in Sheffield should be extended, from currently applying to Abbeydale Road, Chesterfield Road and London Road, to covering more wards?

• Yes
• Unsure
• No

If you'd like to add details on your position, please do so here

Sheffield Green Party supports city-wide landlord licensing and we have been arguing for more protection for private tenants in Sheffield. Privately rented housing often inflicts extreme economic and social hardship on the tenants and contributes to a lack of community cohesion in areas of high renting.  Landlord licensing means saving tenants from poorly maintained homes and creating a level playing field where landlords are rewarded for investing in good quality accommodation.

Local Democracy: “The primary purpose of the Local Area Committees (LACs) is to promote the involvement of local people in the democratic process and to bring decision making closer to local people.” Do you think Local Area Committees should be further developed?

• Yes
• Unsure
• No

If you'd like to add details on your position, please do so here

I am very supportive of LACs in general. However I recognise that work needs to be done to make them more effective in practice. The Green Party supports more council resources going into local neighbourhood working. It is really important to engage with the community as much as possible and for communities to have more control over how resources are used in their area.  But the process must properly reflect this increased responsibility.  We criticised the way the council had steadily reduced its services in the community over many years.  Sadly, the announcement about setting up LACs was a political stunt by the previous council without any consultation, to try and fend off the public voting for a change in the governance referendum.

To encourage people to attend meetings there needs to be more publicity about the meetings and it would be better if they covered smaller areas, they are currently far too wide.

Local Economy: Community wealth building (CWB) is a people-centred approach to local economic development, which redirects wealth back into the local economy, and places control and benefits into the hands of local people." Do you think Sheffield City Council should support community wealth building?

• Yes
• Unsure
• No

If you'd like to add details on your position, please do so here

Community Wealth Building is in our manifesto! It’s Green Party policy that “revival and support of the local economy is of the greatest importance”. It means local people having more say over how areas get developed, and encouraging social enterprise that really benefits neighbourhoods, and encouraging shared ownership. I believe that we need to support local businesses, and promote local skills and talents.  Our economy should be based on training up local people, increasing wealth from the bottom up, and circulating that wealth in the city.  We need to reduce and stop the practice of multi-nationals top slicing money out of Sheffield.