Profile pics and campaign artwork supplied by Siobhan Harper-Nunes
As people across the West Midlands get ready to vote for their next Mayor, heading to ballot boxes across the region on Thursday 2 May, Erdington Local caught up with Green Party candidate and Gravelly Hill resident – Siobhan Harper-Nunes.
West Midlands Mayor Green Party candidate Siobhan Harper-Nunes believe she can “make a difference” and by getting important issues on the agenda “just running is winning”.
The 64-year-old charity founder, who was last seen by voters when she stood for the Birmingham Erdington seat in the 2022 parliamentary constituency by-election, is standing in the upcoming West Midlands Mayoral elections to get the two issues she cares most about on the agenda.
As people prepare to cast their vote on 2 May, Harper-Nunes told Erdington Local: “Child poverty and the climate change agenda are so important to this region. And they are both linked.
“I know Andy Street would not have been talking about net-zero unless there was a Green candidate in the last two elections, now I want him and (Labour’s candidate) Richard Parker to talk about child poverty.
“I am standing because I cannot bear to see how so many people from so many different communities are being left behind. When each election comes around the ‘haves’ have got even more than the ‘have nots’ and it just cannot continue like this.
“How are people working full time but are finding it difficult to feed their kids, it is just not right.”
Ms Harper-Nunes helps charities get funding to carry out vital work in the community and has worked both in the public and third sector raising money, including helping the Institute of Social Enterprise and NCVO National Council of Voluntary Organisations.
In 2007 she also founded Shakti Women – an organisation that supports women in both personal and professional development through coaching and training – and is currently Vice-Chair of Birmingham Race Impact Group.
She said: “I see it every day during my day job, on the front line of dealing with poverty. No candidate talks about child poverty in the West Midlands and how it is getting worse.
“The candidates talk about these big shiny projects. But in my experience no-one cares about these projects, what they care about is why they can’t pay their bills, if their children can get free school meals, and why there is no affordable housing anymore.”
A prominent theme raised by several candidates of this year’s Mayoral election, held on Thursday 2 May, is how to address Birmingham’s often debated Clean Air Zone and net-zero targets.
Both the Reform UK candidate Elaine Williams and independent Akhmed Yaqoob are demanding the scrapping of the Clean Air Zone, claiming it is hitting business and the poorest drivers unfairly.
However, the Green candidate is happy to tell people why they are needed.
Harper-Nunes explained: “Yes, I might have done the Birmingham Clean Air Zone differently, but it is important it is kept. Every year in the West Midlands there are 300,000 preventable deaths due to poor air quality, so of course we need Clean Air Zones.
“In Birmingham a third of the population do not even have a car, so it is not like these green policies are hitting the poorest. But these Clean Air Zones will make a difference and are making a difference every day, so of course I will defend them.”
A Gravelly Hill resident, living just off one of the country’s busiest motorway interchanges, Ms Harper-Nunes also believes Erdington is the perfect example of where a high volume of traffic has caused poor air quality.
She said: “I live in Erdington, and if I had my way I would put a Clean Air Zone around Spaghetti Junction. I was knocking doors in Gravelly Hill and there was not even the need to take an air counter with me, you can just see by the grime on the windows how bad the air quality is around Spaghetti Junction.
“Local children are breathing that in every day, at the very least the surrounding area needs trees planting to counter-act the awful air quality.”
For the green agenda to really work Harper-Nunes believes public transport also needs to be a viable alternative for people to stop them using their car as much.
She added: “We need our public transport system to work properly, we need it to be efficient. We need the buses, trains, and trams to work when they are supposed to.
“And we need it to be cheap, cheaper than using a car – and if it needs to be subsidised to be free than even better.”
Siobhan Harper-Nunes is a mother of four and has four grandchildren, which is another reason why she is standing in the West Midlands Mayoral elections on 2 May.
She told: “I want my grandchildren to live a ripe old age, in a world worth living in. We need to start fighting climate change now for that to happen.”
Believing she has the skills to be the next West Midlands Mayor, Siobhan Harper-Nunes has already impressed in hustings for the upcoming election, making a strong stance against Labour candidate Richard Parker and the incumbent Conservative candidate Andy Street.
She added: “The campaign has been challenging in a lot of ways, but I am enjoying it. I can see I am making a difference in the campaign… the other candidates are taking notice.
“So for me, in a lot of ways, just running is winning.”
For more on Siobhan Harper-Nunes and her campaign to become the next West Midlands Mayor visit www.siobhan4wmmayor.co.uk
For more on the West Midlands Mayoral election visit www.wmca.org.uk/mayor-of-the-west-midlands-more-information-about-the-role/west-midlands-elections-2024-our-region-our-voice
