Independent and Green Party candidates are celebrating a successful election night in South Tyneside.
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00:0015 independent councillors on South Tyneside Council now, a great night for obviously the
00:03independents. Talk us through why you think people in the borough wanted to vote independent
00:07candidates. Well I think in general since we've had significant opposition in South Tyneside
00:15we've been pushing on a lot of different fronts. Some of the key ones are transparency, you know
00:21we've been locked out by Labour even when we got to the point where we had almost a third
00:26of the council seats, still locked out of everything and that's not what should happen
00:31in a council. So this year the significant things that have happened are without a doubt
00:38the Ofsted rating of inadequate, I mean that's disgraceful and obviously we've lost a cabinet
00:44member with that. I think that really resonated with people what was going on in South Tyneside
00:50and on top of that we've had the industrial action, the refuse department, that's really
00:56hurt people and how well that's been managed by the Labour group, insufficient to date,
01:02insufficient messaging, insufficient. So that and then to top it off we've had the former Labour
01:10leader, £20,000 misappropriation of funds, this has really hurt people. So that's got us over the
01:18line, that's got us into people's front rooms, that's got people to react and we've seen that.
01:23Obviously you mentioned that you know it's obviously been a disastrous run-up to this
01:26election from the Labour group. I would take an independent candidate, you know obviously
01:31it's been successful there this year, I think you're going to try and build on that for the
01:33coming years to come. Yeah I've still got to look at the results tonight but I don't think we're far
01:37away from no overall control and that'll certainly be the next big target for us and we've got a
01:42fallow year and then we've got 2026 when that could and will happen so we'll be we'll be tagging
01:50that. Okay David so just talk us through how you feel the night's gone. Yeah I think it's been a
01:55really positive night for us here, you know we're growing in our size, growing in our influence
01:59and I'm excited to see what our new councillors can do for their areas. Now last year was obviously
02:02a successful year for the Green Party, as you just mentioned there you know you've gained more seats
02:06again this year, how does it feel to be sort of you know still I suppose the opposition party,
02:11I know there's more independent councillors but you're still kind of the opposition party,
02:14how's it feel to be that? Yeah well I mean it's I think it's a really interesting thing if you
02:17look at the context of this, five years ago there was one opposition councillor in South Tyneside
02:22and you know tonight that's changed massively but it's changed over the last few years as well,
02:27we've grown from from one Green councillor in 2019, we've now got a group of 11 and we've got
02:32several wards where we've got two and three councillors and I think that's really a testament
02:36to the work that those councillors do when they get elected, people want more of that and so as I
02:41say they've voted for a second and third councillor in some of those wards. What do you think it is
02:44about the Green Party that people do want in South Tyneside? I think basically it's that
02:49consistent hard work, working hard for the areas that they represent and as I say you know that
02:54gets rewarded within people's confidence to elect a second Green and a third Green because they like
02:58what they get when they vote Green, they know that we're out working hard for the community
03:01all year round taking action on the things that matter to them.