Green opponents show their cards as Brighton issues take centre-stage

Forget the honeymoon period - Brighton's Green Council is already under sustained scrutiny and attack by the other political parties in the city. They haven't wasted time on such small formalities as an analysis of their own performance at the local elections, they have gone straight to attack mode.

Already, the fault lines are becoming apparent and there are both positive and troubling implications for us in them. The most damning argument is that as a Council, we are dangerously inexperienced and that by appointing new Councillors straight in the Cabinet, we are risking burn-out, or more worryingly, missing something serious in our duty of care to the city. It is worth being mindful of this view, even though I have every faith in our Cabinet. As a non-Councillor, I wasn't party to the decision-making process that appointed our Cabinet, but I would have made the case for inclusion of more existing Councillors with proven track records in this initial year. The workload and level of commitment expected from our elected representatives both inspires and intimidates in equal measure and the culture shock for our new representatives is not to be underestimated. As a local party, we should find more ways to support those colleagues taking the highest burden.

Where the other parties are letting themselves down is that by pushing this quite so gleefully, it comes across suspiciously like sour grapes and carping from the sidelines. This can only serve to paint them as career politicians, more concerned with position than putting misgivings aside and contributing for the good of the city. That said, we cannot rely upon the patience of the electorate indefinitely to cut us slack.

In the month since the Greens took office, two issues in particular have flared up with the potential to damage our reputation quite quickly. This has been our response to traveller encampments on the outskirts of the city and the establishment of a protest camp in the Old Steine, one of the most conspicuous locations in the city. In both instances, the Greens have worked hard with both the groups and the local authorities and behaved in an even-handed and responsible manner. The response from the Conservatives has been to scaremonger that we are making the city a "laboratory" for our social experiments and that we are not speaking up for the majority. Just reading Councillor Ben Duncan's statement on the subject gives the lie to that assertion.

However, they are succeeding to a degree in dragging us into the mire on two "minority" issues and keeping press attention away from the more sound policies, such as our commitment to increase house-building dramatically, review transport policies for the city and the agreement yesterday to install solar panels on all Council-owned buildings.

We need to ensure that we get a clear line on why we support right to protest and how we are approaching the policing of such protest in the city and hammer it home each time we speak to the press. The narrative we are beginning to hear is that our inexperience and focus on fringe issues will make the city less productive and attractive to live in. We need sharp headline retorts to these criticism that strike a moderate balance and stay true to our values of supporting free speech and movement. Wherever possible, we need to reiterate that important though these issues are, we are working to a bigger vision that will benefit and transform the whole city.

Building Green success: The route-map to 2015 (part 3)

Throughout this week, I've been focussing on the fresh political landscape in Brighton and Hove. Whilst the UK is living through some of the most challenging financial circumstances in the last twenty years, those of us here on the coast are entertaining hopes that over the next four years, the Greens can forge a beacon of good governance and an inspiring alternative to politics as usual.

However, this historic opportunity leaves us with a great responsibility to prove that we can be trusted with holding power. Our performance here will have implications for the Green Party's reputation across the country. We can already sense that the national media and our opponents will be quick to use our leadership stance and policies here to extrapolate about the party as a whole, for good or ill.

I believe that to make this term of office a success, we need to identify a strong narrative for what we are hoping to achieve and communicate this relatively swiftly, so that voters feel able to measure us against it. In the current circumstances, we should not over-commit and aim for a series of incremental improvements to the city that leave it a more prosperous and unified place.

For me, the main achievement of a first term in office will be to persuade voters that we can be trusted to pay due respect to the core issues that matter to people. We need to ensure we focus as much on these "bread and butter" issues as the green priorities we have strong credentials upon. Ideally, we should be knitting these together to deliver on multiple outcomes at once.

So what are the main issues of importance for residents in the city? Simple. I think our principal focus has to be upon job creation and retention. Critical to this will be placing the Council's weight behind small businesses, to build an enabling environment within which they can flourish. On the expansion of green jobs, I noticed in response to one of my earlier posts, Ben Ramalingam argued for the active promotion of a commercial green network and to capacity-build these businesses in the Sussex area. We need to assess what our principal industries consist of and identify the extent to which these networks already exist for them. If not, we must take a role in convening these conversations so we become leading hubs of activity and market leaders in the country. I sincerely believe that this is an area where we can work productively with the other political parties as well as the business community

Alongside this, we need to stand firm on our principles that require the Council budget to be re-examined to try and avoid cuts to front-line public services. More than any other party, we stand on the side of the disadvantaged and those most likely to suffer the impact of our greatly reduced settlement from central government. That's why recent talk from the Greens about participatory budgeting and opening up the Council more to the public can only help accountability. You can only argue that "we are in it together" if you genuinely level with the public and propose solutions together in an accountable fashion.

The other area of great concern to residents has been the lack of new housing and the number of empty properties not being put to good use. Only 380 new homes were built here in the last year and this number is nearly half of the previous year. Already, the signs are strong that the new Green Council will reverse this and are aiming for at least 1,000 homes to be built in the next year. It is heartening that the new Leader of the Council and both of his Deputies have professional experience in housing, architecture and planning. I have no doubt this will remain high on their agenda.

What I believe the Green Party can offer Brighton and Hove is to bring all elements of the community into a pragmatic and honest conversation about the future. Our reputation as reasonable outsiders sits well with the view many Brightonians hold of themselves: cosmopolitan, moderate, yet iconoclastic. Perhaps we finally have a Council that can truly represent and articulate Brighton's unique identity?