Green Party announces candidate for South Yorkshire mayor election

Bex Whyman, aged 38, from Dore in Sheffield, hopes to unseat Labour this May as Barnsley Central MP Dan Jarvis steps down from his mayoral position.

The senior analyst mum of two said voting Green stood for ‘real change’ against voting for Labour who are favourites to win.

The environment is also at the top of her to-do list and called on more schemes to properly insulate homes and move away quicker from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy.

But she also said she does not support any more schemes to build new roads in the county and said a mass-integrated, affordable public transport system was the way to go.

Public control of the bus network, which is also a major policy backed by all four Labour shortlisted candidates, does require central government help and Ms Whyman said full costs for such a scheme will be published in due course.

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Ms Whyman said her role away from politics and with her present senior analyst role means she ‘understands the business’ and said previously she has experience of putting the heating on or choosing to eat.

Speaking at a rally on bringing buses back into public control outside Doncaster Council’s Civic Office, she said: “I want to stand to give people a voice that hasn’t got one. I come from a place where I had to choose between putting my heating on or eating tea that night.

“I’m a senior analyst at the minute so I’m not in any council position. So I come from a place where I know and understand business.

On buses, she added: “We want to bring it back into public hands as much as we can. So bus franchising is on the cards, yes.

“Green is the only way forward and we need to make it happen to make our transport system as clean as possible.”

Pressed on how she would fund such a system, Ms Whyman said: “Ultimately, it has to come down from national government, we need that funding to be put into place.

“If you look at places like Manchester, they’ve been given some of that funding.

“What you can also do is get using the infrastructure itself to lend off and then generate money that way so there are ways to get the money to do it. So why aren’t we doing it?

Another policy area in the mayoral role is jobs and skills and Ms Whyman said green jobs could propel South Yorkshire back on a good footing in sectors like construction and manufacturing.

“It is vital to develop jobs and skills that support this period of energy transition, undertaking the important work of conserving energy by insulating homes,” she said.

“We want to achieve this by building more energy efficient homes and retrofitting the places we live and work. Following on from COP26 we know that there are challenges in all industries to meet emissions pledges – and the Green Party have a long history of meeting these challenges head on.

“The answer is to follow our core values and work with nature, not against it. Acknowledging the interdependence of transport, energy and jobs we can create a harmonious and just economy.”