Opening the door of her Victorian house dressed in a smart jumper and crisp red trousers, Wendy Robbins, 87, hardly resembles a stereotypical Green voter. But she is – and one so loyal she is almost aghast at being canvassed. “For goodness sake, you don’t have to ask,” she playfully chastises Andrew Stringer, the local Green councillor, who has knocked on her door in the Suffolk village of Mendlesham ahead of Thursday’s local elections.
There is, however, a bit more to it. Robbins insists she is not “a Green voter” as such, simply a fan of Stringer, who has represented the ward for 20 years. “We’re not voting for central parties, we’re voting for local parties and local people, and he is absolutely brilliant,” she says. “You ask him about something and within six months you can be quite sure he will have done it.”
This is ultra-local community politics, Green-style, and it could be about to deliver something of a low-key revolution on 4 May: the first majority-controlled Green council in the UK. Starting with Stringer’s single seat back in 2003, the party has built up to now claim a dozen of the 34 councillors on Mid Suffolk district council. Five more would depose the ruling Conservatives and make political history, given the only other Green-run councils, such as Brighton and Hove, were minority administrations. Stringer and his colleagues insist it can be done. Local Conservatives, in contrast, believe they can make gains on their current 16 seats, while YouGov polling in the area says it is too close to call either way. What is perhaps more interesting even than the potential result is the way the Greens have gone about it, often placing more focus on sheer energy, local connections and reliability than specific policies. “It’s about reconnecting people with their communities,” argues Stringer. “People are feeling like they’re being ‘done to’, and we just want to ‘work with’. I often use the phrase that it is a bit of an experiment in local politics. And the experiment seems to be really working, in an odd way.” Helen Geake, a Green councillor who is standing down – as an archaeologist and TV presenter on the now-resurrected-via-YouTube series Time Team she is simply too busy – calls the local Conservatives “quite complacent”.
“They’ve always been voted in here,” she says. “And when somebody comes along who actually does listen and thinks about what needs to be done for the whole community, I think that’s very attractive to people.” A round of canvassing in Mendlesham and in Stowmarket, the district’s main town, brings up issues familiar to any councillor, including access to GPs, woeful local bus services and of course potholes. John Rednall, a retired teacher buttonholed by Stringer in central Stowmarket, says he will be a first-time Green voter on Thursday. He cites a lack of infrastructure for the many clumps of new housing appearing locally, and a hope for better landscaping to mask Gateway 14, a vast, council-created business park on the edge of the town.
Dave Leather, who works in financial services in London – remotely for the most part – hints he could be persuaded to vote Green if they can help the town centre, where he lives. Stowmarket does have assets, including a popular cinema and the John Peel arts centre – the late Radio 1 DJ lived in a nearby village – but has two much bigger shopping destinations at either side of the local main road, the east-west A14, from which Gateway 14 gets its name. “We need to give people a reason to go to the high street,” Leather says. “If you live in a village 10 minutes from here you’d get in the car and go to the shops in Bury St Edmunds or Ipswich.” It is, however, not just the Greens who have plans. Pausing a leafleting run at a coffee shop on the edge of Stowmarket, James Caston, who combines being a Conservative councillor with running an arable farm and having a young family, insists his party can make new ground. “It’s not going to be easy, but we’re positive,” he says. “The feedback I’m getting is really good so far.” His colleague John Whitehead agrees: “With a fair wind and the hard work the candidates are putting in, we should win 18 to 20 seats. I’ve just been to lunch at a community event and someone said: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’” But arguably something a bit remarkable has already taken place: in this most traditionally Tory of areas, the Conservatives are actually fielding fewer candidates than the Greens, 27 against 29. Gemma Whitehouse, a 34-year-old charity worker who is among those 29, says this first foray into politics has its origins in when she voted Liberal Democrat in 2010, and watching the party jettison policy promises in coalition with David Cameron. “The Greens here have helped me regain my trust in politics,” she says. “I want to make a difference. I want to tell people what I want to do, and then actually do it.”