Democracy & political engagement

The council is for everyone. We will bring greater participation, transparency, communication and accountability back to Hackney’s local government.

Ethical use of council money

We understand the responsibility of managing Hackney’s budget and pension funds, and we will ensure the council’s funding is not being used to fund genocide.

Anti-austerity

We reject the ongoing cuts to council budgets by the central government and will lead calls and action for a national, cross-borough, anti-austerity campaign, demanding a full restoration of funding. This will support and build on existing community organising.

Workers first

We know that Hackney is nothing without the people who keep our council, public institutions and beloved local businesses running. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with workers and the trade unions that represent them, demanding greater rights and respect.

Anti-fascist

We reject the rising far-right rhetoric that is enabled and pedalled by the central government and far-right political figures. We will stand side by side with our community in Hackney, particularly marginalised communities, and keep our borough as a place that welcomes, respects and supports our neighbours.

Celebrating diversity

We love and celebrate the diversity and vibrance of Hackney’s community. We will always stand in solidarity with Black, racialised, LGBTQIA+ and Disabled communities and women, and centre their inclusion and rights in all that we do.

Climate and environmental justice

We will transform Hackney for the benefit of its residents, future generations, and the planet as a whole. We understand that the threats to our community and environment are part of the same problem, and recognise that solving one cannot be achieved without solving the other.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Make building new council homes a core priority, using council-owned land and every available delivery route to increase supply of safe homes residents can actually afford.
• Push for Hackney Council pension funds to be used to purchase or buy-back many of the council homes Hackney urgently needs.
• Work with neighbouring boroughs to establish a ‘Housing for London’ building company to build new, quality council homes and create local jobs.
• Deliver a new high-quality Traveller site and a negotiated stopping site.
• Work with Canal & River Trust to explore introducing Hackney’s first community eco mooring. Permanent moorings will provide services, workshops and activities for the local community and will develop and maintain the area, and temporary moorings would be available for boaters in need.
• Commit to increasing the proportion of family-sized (3+ beds) and fully accessible council housing.
• Deliver a functional council home-swapper service to support residents to find homes that are the right size for their needs. For those downsizing from large council homes, we will provide a cash incentive, as well as dedicated staff time and digital assistance.
• Identify sites for new community-owned housing developments like community land trusts and cooperative housing.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Support and encourage the establishment of Tenants’ and Residents’ Associations (TRAs) on every estate in Hackney by 2030, to ensure residents’ voices are heard.
• Phase out the use of bailiffs to collect council tax debt.
• Ensure that debt is not a disqualifier in applying for council housing, particularly for survivors of domestic abuse who are trying to find a safe home.
• Set a target of inspecting council homes within one week of a tenant repair request, group repairs for efficiency where possible, and implement an improved system for informing residents when to expect surveyors and repair teams.
• Review how long scaffolding is left up after works are completed to avoid unnecessary negative impacts on residents and cost to the council.
• Implement all recommendations from Housing Inclusion Hackney to improve housing allocation for families of children with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities).
• Ensure regular inspections and audits of temporary accommodation (TA), to mitigate safety risks and ensure good standards.
• Allow TA tenants to safely have visitors for improved care and wellbeing.
• Bring more TA provision in-house, improving council oversight on quality and saving on outsourced provision.
• Review funding for rough sleeper support to identify direct grants for rough sleepers.
• End the practice of providing chairs in place of beds to rough sleepers during extreme weather.
• Lobby the national government to increase Local Housing Allowance and council funds for emergency housing support to help prevent homelessness.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Use the voice of the Mayor of Hackney to push for local rent control powers.
• Seek to expand landlord licensing to cover the whole borough, making sure renters in all areas of Hackney are protected from rogue landlords.
• Press the Metropolitan Police to provide better training for police officers on the law regarding renters’ rights, so that officers are able to identify and stop unlawful evictions.
• Support leaseholders to hold managing agents to account, including setting up Right to Manage companies. Where the council has influence, we will set clear expectations of managing agents, challenge poor practice, and take action when standards are not met.
• Work with private landlords to make more rental properties fully accessible.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Ensure developers follow through on commitments to provide affordable homes, workspaces and community space, and take action against those that don’t.
• Enshrine resident participation in new developments and council plans, such as by implementing resident-led plans for the future of our housing estates.
• Review and monitor ‘partnerships’ between the council and property developers, including all estate regeneration projects, ensuring the needs of the community are always the priority.
• Launch an accessible design review panel of Disabled residents.
• Support Community Right to Buy whereby social landlords and community-led housing organisations are given the right of first refusal on poorly maintained and empty homes.
• Support Zane’s Law, legislation which would protect public health by mandating a public register of potentially contaminated land.
• Work with developers to ensure sufficient housing stock for larger families, including reviewing provisions around double-dormer extensions.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Commit to adapting and retrofitting council housing stock to improve energy efficiency and make Hackney homes more resilient to extreme weather, such as by increasing heat pump provision in council housing.
• Provide a free retrofit advice service for the private sector to help people find trusted suppliers and navigate planning regulations.
• Prioritise the refurbishment of buildings over demolition, to protect our environment, use what we have, and avoid the increasing gentrification of our neighbourhoods.
• Introduce higher standards for energy efficiency and climate resilience in new developments through planning regulations, prioritising nature-based methods.
• Allow for more energy-efficiency retrofitting of homes in conservation areas.
• Lobby the national government to expand the funding and eligibility for the Warm Homes Local Grant to encourage the replacement of gas boilers with heat pumps in the private sector.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Phase in a 100% council tax relief to Hackney’s lowest-income residents.
• Work to increase take-up of key benefits like Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance and other financial support, especially for residents without internet access, so that everyone is receiving the help they are entitled to.
• Support the establishment of resident-led food co-operatives on every major Hackney estate by 2030, bringing down the cost of food through bulk-buying.
• Explore the introduction of financial support for prescriptions for residents with lifelong health conditions not covered by national exemption rules.
• Expand apprenticeships and practical training routes by working with local businesses and community organisations so that more Hackney residents — especially young people leaving education — can access meaningful employment in the borough’s local economy.
• Enable residents to access affordable credit by partnering with a London-based credit union and avoiding profit-hungry multinational banks.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Convene a summit of independent businesses and provide targeted rate relief for small local businesses and voluntary and community organisations, to help protect them from being priced out of the area by large corporations.
• Develop a long-term plan to increase footfall and sustainability across the borough’s markets, improving infrastructure, affordability, trader support and logistics of Hackney’s markets to properly meet the needs of traders.
• Launch a night market by 2030.
• Work with small and independent businesses to create a ‘Hackney Cooperative Buying Network’, a council-facilitated, democratically governed bulk-buying scheme that reduces overheads by pooling demand for commonly used products and materials, prioritising local suppliers.
• Use any and all new powers granted to local councils by the government to prevent the establishment of new gambling shops on our high streets.
• Ensure strong enforcement of the council’s sustainable procurement strategy, maintaining its focus on insourcing, buying from local and socially minded businesses and challenging spending on external consultants wherever possible.
• Transfer all public services currently outsourced to extractive, for-profit companies to locally owned businesses and community enterprises wherever possible.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Commission a public, borough-wide investigation to find out ‘Who Owns Hackney’. This investigation will bring to light the reality of how our land and buildings are used, and in whose interests, and will inform our plan for how we give communities a say in the use of space in Hackney.
• Supercharge efforts to see our community halls used by the communities around them and bring community spaces back into use with an ‘Alive and Flourishing Strategy’ — a borough-wide plan to map, reimagine and reactivate the underused or overlooked parts of Hackney, prioritising fair and equal access to space.
• Support community groups to use Community Right to Buy powers and community asset transfer to protect valued local buildings and spaces, and enable greater community use.
• Make use of Compulsory Purchase Orders to buy long-term empty shopfronts, bringing them back to life and utilising them to support local businesses and community groups.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Adopt a holistic approach to safety and crime-reduction that acknowledges structural inequalities as a major driver of crime and prioritise funding for prevention and early intervention services.
• Demand proper funding for community solutions and youth support organisations with recognition of the special role for Black-led organisations and advocates, as well as a reform of youth justice and education to serve our communities.
• Listen to and work with community organisations raising concerns about policing practices to address challenges in a community-centric way.
• Push to end the ‘prostitute caution’ which is discriminatory and harmful to sex workers and back calls to decriminalise sex work.
• Work with the Metropolitan Police to pause the use of Live Facial Recognition technology in Hackney and advocate for its use only in narrowly defined circumstances.
• Push to end the discriminatory policing of delivery riders and drivers, recognising that many are migrants facing exploitation, harassment and unjust enforcement.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Defend the right to peaceful protest and champion Hackney’s long history of non-conformism and peaceful protest.
• Respect peaceful protest on council land in visible places, such as in front of Hackney Town Hall.
• Use council buildings and communications to celebrate our history of peaceful protest.
• Defend London citizens’ right to protest from encroachment by the Metropolitan Police and the government, and explore how to foster advocacy of social justice throughout our borough through partnerships with diverse community organisations.
• Support schools and youth clubs to create spaces where younger generations can explore important causes of social justice and gain political education, such as in libraries, schools and the Hackney Museum.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Ensure that council officers working in appropriate public-facing services have access to harm reduction tools including naloxone.
• Protect funding for alcohol and other drug treatment services and support further harm reduction measures like Heroin Assisted Treatment.
• Work with the police to deprioritise the policing of cannabis possession, in line with the Mayor of London’s drug commission.
• Push for the Metropolitan Police to conduct an evidence-based review of stop and search as a tactic to evaluate its effectiveness and the impact it is having on people in Hackney.
• Work with other cities leading harm reduction efforts to lobby the government to allow local areas to set up safe consumption rooms (overdose prevention sites), like the Thistle in Glasgow.
• Call on the government to deliver a genuine public health approach to drugs, that includes a safe supply, legal control and regulation, access to care, and policies rooted in evidence.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Look to commission community-based domestic abuse services.
• Ensure strategic alignment with children’s services and early intervention of domestic abuse.
• Work with the police to identify and stop the most prolific offenders.
• Advocate for a firewall to be established between the police and the Home Office to prevent the sharing of victim-survivor immigration status, a practice often used by perpetrators to stop victims speaking out.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Expand our approach to adult social care to encompass a broader range of community partners and non-profit organisations, and proactively connect residents with a wider range of local resources and support.
• Establish community-led support hubs across the borough, where people can access social care support in a non-institutional setting.
• Encourage, promote, and support non-profit organisations to provide care such as care cooperatives, social enterprises or community interest companies, ensuring good working conditions for workers and personalised, considerate care for service users.
• Work with the local NHS trust to support and extend social prescribing capacity, and ensure coordination and joined-up working across the different services for countering loneliness and isolation.
• Work with Disabled residents to identify gaps in provision and, building on feedback and experiences of our residents, help identify any training and development needs of the Adult Social Care workforce.
• Explore ways to improve access to independent living options for working-age Disabled residents in Hackney.
• Fully support the Changing Places campaign and aim to provide a changing places toilet in every council building, as well as developing a Changing Places and Accessible Public Toilet Strategy for Hackney to ensure the needs of all our residents are met.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Use planning powers to push developers to include more accessible sports facilities and recreational space in new developments.
• Help identify training grounds and club space for local football teams either in Hackney or a nearby borough through partnership with neighbouring councils and organisations.
• Work closely with Disabled residents and advocates to understand opportunities and gaps in provision in accessing sports and wellbeing facilities in the borough, as part of our inclusive approach.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Protect our libraries from further cuts, reinvest in library staffing and stock to meet demand, and improve accessibility of the buildings. Library staff and unions must be at the heart of these decisions.
• Work to enhance our libraries’ events and activities, in collaboration with local partners.
• Create designated ‘friendship spaces’ in each library, where people can come to connect with neighbours and members of the community, to help tackle loneliness and isolation in the borough.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Grow our Children and Family Hubs and transform two into Neighbourhood Care Hubs where both children and their carers can access support, activities, advice and respite. We will consult residents, carers and young people, especially those from marginalised groups, in decision-making about our care hubs.
• Review recent nursery fee rises and work with families and providers to implement alternative fee structures. We will continue to lobby the national government for free, universal, high quality early years care.
• Work to keep children in care in the borough so they can stay at their school, keep their friends, and remain close to the people who support them, minimising the placement moves as much as possible.
• Commit to involving young people, especially those from marginalised groups and who have spent time in care, in decision-making about children and youth services.
• Fight for youth workers to be treated like other public sector professions — with fair pay, good supervision, secure jobs, and improved professional recognition.
• Support the long-term sustainability of youth and community organisations, particularly Black-led organisations and their provision of community-led approaches.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Ensure all post-16 education providers working with the council carry out robust Equality Impact Assessments to demonstrate how they are improving equal opportunities, taking real action to tackle racial and socioeconomic disadvantage, and making sure schools are safe and empowering for LGBTQIA+ children.
• Improve access to early, independent advice for families navigating school exclusions and education decisions, including through strengthening local advice services, so concerns can be addressed early and fairly without unnecessary escalation.
• Lobby central government to reduce pressure and stress on pupils and teachers by ending high-stakes formal testing in primary and secondary schools, in line with evidence from the National Education Union.
• Lobby for the end of the Prevent duty, part of the central government’s counter-terrorism strategy, which has been found to perpetuate discrimination against Muslim students.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Strengthen Hackney’s SEND Information, Advice and Guidance Service to help resolve issues early and ensure families understand the support their children are entitled to.
• Strengthen the independence and influence of Hackney’s Parent Carer Forum and ensure it has a clear role in raising systemic issues, informing council decision-making and ensuring services respond where support is not being delivered properly.
• Expand high-quality SEND provision, including within mainstream schools, so children don’t have to go out of borough for their education. We will also ensure families are clearly informed about local education pathways, including post-14 and post-16 options.
• Strengthen inclusive practice in schools to improve support and ensure the provision set out in Education Health and Care Plans and Special Educational Needs plans is delivered.
• Improve transparency and accountability in SEND services so families know how decisions are made and services are performing; feedback from families must directly inform service improvement.
• Ensure any new national government education strategy is implemented equitably and where decisions need to be made, we will make them in partnership with pupils, school staff, parents and families.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Improve pedestrian safety by installing safe crossings around our borough, particularly along journeys to key places, such as markets, schools and hospitals, to ensure communities are well served.
• Partner with Transport for London (TfL) to ensure there are formal or informal crossings every 100 metres along streets across the borough, and programme eligible traffic lights at standalone crossings to allow pedestrians to cross immediately.
• Make school crossings a top priority, starting with the seven primary schools that currently have no safe crossings, and will create traffic-free School Streets for all eligible primary and secondary schools, as well as introducing them at colleges.
• Fast track the delivery of the council’s Main Road Strategy, ensuring everyone benefits from quieter streets, improved safety and cleaner air, sooner.
• Prioritise protected and fully accessible cycle lanes and networks of low traffic streets and publish an implementation plan for a cycle network that allows all Hackney residents to live within 400m of a high-quality cycle route.
• Increase cycle training provision for global majority and Disabled residents, through partnerships with schools, charities and local businesses.
• Seek funding to significantly increase cycle hangar provision throughout the borough.
• Negotiate improved deals with dockless hire bike companies to ensure that the £93 million dockless hire bike market in Hackney brings greater benefit to residents and the council, to improve affordability and reduce pavement clutter that can interfere with Disabled residents’ mobility.
• Design and implement a Kerbside and Parking Strategy to bring new life to kerbside spaces for safer crossings, greater accessibility, public seating, climate resilience and increased urban biodiversity.
• Demand that any roll-out of driverless cars is highly regulated, with full accountability for corporations, and lobby for maximum local control over driverless cars.
• Lobby for the national roll-out of road charging on electric vehicles to be smart and fair.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Partner with neighbouring boroughs to apply to the Mayor of London to create a Road Safety Premium for the largest cars driving into Hackney. The charge will not affect commercial vehicles and will only apply to vehicles entering the borough. This bold action will deter the use of oversized cars on main roads and any excess revenue will be invested back into local mobility.
• Introduce new car parking permit structures that reflect vehicle size, weight and emissions, to deter the use of SUVs and ensure people pay their fair share to improve the safety and accessibility of our roads.
• Work with neighbouring London boroughs, councils and TfL to expand a sustainable system of car-share clubs, suitable for large families, and look for ways to provide child seats, adequate storage, as well as fully accessible options.
• Work with TfL to investigate new bus priority measures on council-run roads, allowing buses to move reliably through our borough, and lobby to change bus lane operation to 24 hours a day and remove all car parking from bus lanes.
• Investigate a sliding-scale workplace parking levy for businesses that provide a substantial number of employee parking spaces, with exemptions for Blue Badge bays.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Commit to improving the Chatsworth Road scheme. We will hold listening sessions, publish data, and keep adjustment options on the table, such as bus gate timings and locations, and expanding exemptions.
• Relieve bottlenecks on main roads through reduced parking and our new Road Safety Premium for the largest non-commercial through traffic.
• Not rush promises before the facts are clear. We will not reactively scrap schemes for the sake of making driving easier, as doing so may expose pedestrians on residential streets to fatal risk.
• Be fully transparent in evidence-gathering about LTNs, increasing the amount of data collected and making data fully accessible to the public, so we can make decisions together.
• Where we find disproportionate equalities impacts in LTNs, we will explore a fairer system of exemptions at bus gates and LTNs for Disabled residents, carers, social care staff and families of children with SEND.
• Develop a dedicated plan to help local businesses and charities adopt e-cargo bikes, expanding the network of cargo bike hire schemes across Hackney and advocating to the Mayor of London to adopt a system of targeted subsidies to aid this transition.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Embed biodiversity across council plans by assigning a lead to co-ordinate action across departments.
• Prioritise ecosystem repair and create more diverse, resilient habitats in parks and public spaces, including ponds, dead wood, varied planting (prioritising native species) and connected green corridors.
• End routine pesticide use, including glyphosate and other herbicides, across council-managed land wherever possible.
• Safeguard local trees by maintaining up-to-date records of all ancient, veteran and notable trees in the borough, encouraging resident participation in suggesting trees to be protected, and use Tree Preservation Orders where appropriate.
• Protect and reconnect Hackney’s ecosystems, such as by supporting the Rights of the River Lea campaign, strengthening wildlife corridors, and requiring biodiversity lost to development to be replaced on-site.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Train local biodiversity champions, and support community groups, Tenants and Residents Associations and schools to enact long-term environmental stewardship and build understanding of biodiverse spaces.
• Reform green space maintenance in conversation with communities. We want community input on initiatives such as ending unnecessary leaf removal, defaulting to raking rather than leaf blowers, and piloting the transformation of plain lawn space in council housing into more wild and exciting accessible green space.
• Institute a ‘garden buddy’ system to connect people with green space they aren’t able to look after with those who don’t have green space but would like to do some garden work.
• Mark International Mother Earth Day ‘Pachamama’ (22 April), as a borough-wide week of climate action and learning, highlighting global majority and Indigenous perspectives on environmental stewardship.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Connect schools with local food growing and nature access initiatives.
• Support the development of a multi-sector Hackney Food Partnership, in line with guidance from the national Sustainable Food Places partnership programme.
• Develop a borough-wide Food Strategy and Action Plan, setting out how we will achieve a vision of a healthy, sustainable and fair food system for Hackney.
• Use our ‘Alive and Flourishing Strategy’ to unlock underused space for community gardens, biodiversity initiatives and food growing.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Establish a community skip which is moved around the borough, allowing residents to conveniently dispose of bulky items for free.
• Expand and improve awareness of reuse and repair hubs across the borough, ensuring that all residents have easy access to facilities for borrowing, reusing and repairing items.
• Work with local residents to workshop new and innovative ways of preventing fly-tipping and littering in their local area.
• Increase the size of street cleaning teams in the borough, providing local jobs that support our borough to look its best.
• Explore every option to cancel the rebuilding of the Edmonton incinerator and press for investigations into using the site for alternative, greener waste-management solutions.
• Seek to bring Estate Managers back to large Hackney estates, responsible for organising repairs and estate maintenance, supporting residents in removing bulky waste and keeping estates clean.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Commit to achieving the most ambitious World Health Organisation targets on air quality through our bold plans to tackle congestion, encourage active travel and lobby for national action to tackle domestic wood burning pollution.
• Work to expand the network of e-cargo bike hire schemes across Hackney.
• Create a borough-wide master plan for electric vehicle charging, ensuring a well-planned rollout of convenient and accessible charging points.
• Support and empower local community energy projects, which help lower energy bills for residents and businesses, as well as reducing carbon emissions.
• Support residents to access retrofit schemes, helping Hackney’s housing become more energy efficient and future-proof.
• Introduce higher standards for energy efficiency and climate resilience, and aim for no natural gas in new developments, until the Future Homes Standard comes into effect.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Support households to de-pave and re-green their gardens, both to encourage wildlife and ecosystem repair, but also to act as a natural defence against flooding and help reduce street temperatures.
• Continue expanding the use of rain gardens, making sure that native species are used as the default and always exploring including opportunities for other habitats.
• Explore where concrete in public areas can be replaced by green spaces to reduce flooding risk in high rain and increase water retention in hot weather, plus help to reduce street temperatures.
• Increase use of green roofs to contain rainwater and reduce temperatures of buildings and the area around them, in conjunction with solar panels.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Defend LGBTIQA+ rights and make sure the borough is welcoming and safe.
• Work to tackle all forms of racism, discrimination and misogyny within the council and across the borough.
• Expand the Youth Parliament’s leadership roles with elected Anti-Racism and Anti-Sexism Representatives and Disabled Advocates.
• Work to make sure trans residents can access all areas of public life. We will provide support for organisations to invest in inclusive facilities, such as accessible, gender-neutral toilets, and we will lobby nationally for the Code of Practice to be rewritten to allow for trans inclusion in single-sex services.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Continue to invest in Hackney’s vital immigration advice services, and seek additional funding to support the expansion of this service.
• Ensure that those without documentation are given the help and support they need to regularise their status, and take steps to extend council services such as rough sleeping and domestic violence support so that immigration status isn’t a barrier.
• Proactively work to increase awareness of immigration advice services and ensure that immigration services are accessible to all, such as by integrating childcare facilities with free English for Speakers of Other Languages classes, and providing more opportunities for migrants to access services in their own languages.
• Ensure that people accessing our services can do so knowing that their information will not be shared with immigration enforcement agencies.
• Invest in training for residents who want to become migrant advisors, to help residents provide trusted advice to migrant neighbours in a non-institutional setting.
• Appoint a councillor as a Migrant Champion to act as an advocate for migrant residents, and for migrants’ rights issues within the local council and as part of the Migrant Champions Network.
• Lobby the government to end ‘no recourse to public funds’, and in the interim fill this gap in service wherever possible, including through access to free school meals, healthcare services and education.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Declare Hackney a Borough of Peace and Justice.
• Support community-led campaigns in Hackney opposing the UK and international arms trade, including local groups campaigning against the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) London Arms Fair.
• Refuse any council data-sharing, joint commissioning or partnership arrangements with companies like Palantir, where technologies are derived from or linked to military intelligence, and press our NHS Trusts to do the same.
• Promote peace education in Hackney’s schools and youth programmes wherever possible, working with local groups to build global citizenship, human-rights awareness and anti-racist solidarity.
• Campaign to revive and expand the ‘Knowledge is Power’ programme — a leading anti-colonial Black-history course previously taught at Hackney’s BSix College — across Hackney’s education system wherever possible.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• End Hackney’s twinning with Haifa at the earliest opportunity.
• Undertake a full and continual review of all existing twinning relationships and oppose relationships where the partner fails to uphold equal human rights or participates in apartheid, systemic oppression or genocide.
• Explore new twinning models rooted in solidarity — partnering with municipalities engaged in peacebuilding, climate justice, and local democracy movements, particularly in the Global South.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Connect arts organisations and music groups with underused spaces in Hackney and link communities with local artists to transform empty community halls into inclusive arts spaces.
• Explore business rate relief to properties being used for arts and cultural activities.
• Commit to the Arts Council’s ‘All In Accessibility Standards’ and explore grant funding for grassroots venues to improve accessibility.
• Use existing planning powers to push for better affordable workspaces for creatives, ensuring they meet community needs, as well as consideration for cultural and sports venues in new developments.
• Make arts careers sustainable by encouraging venues to pay London Living Wage.
• Continue to celebrate Hackney’s diversity through celebrations, festivals and days of commemoration, and begin raising the Irish Traveller flag at the Town Hall on the 25th of July to mark International Irish Traveller Day.
• Bring back Hackney Carnival, including to Ridley Road. We will work with carnival groups to cut costs, boost funding, and tap into new income streams like local sponsorship and community crowdfunding.
• Establish a new Carnival Hub in Hackney to support carnival groups who provide vital activities all year round.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Continue to support the fantastic work of Hackney Nights, and seek to model future initiatives on this success, finding new ways to grow our night-time economy sustainably, safely and responsibly.
• Bring Stoke Newington Town Hall back to life as a major cultural and arts venue, championing creativity, community and inclusivity.
• Review how the council could use licensing, planning and procurement powers to ensure we are supporting grassroots and independent venues.
• Protect longstanding venues by ensuring developers take responsibility for mitigating potential complaints from new developments.
• Demand that the Mayor of London stand up for local music and cultural venues with improved night-time travel plans and licensing.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Give residents real power to influence decisions by setting up a permanent and powerful Citizen’s Assembly, bringing representative groups of people together, like a jury, to deliberate on specific issues, find common ground and make actionable recommendations to the council.
• Bring greater transparency to the council by publishing all meetings and activities of the Mayor of Hackney in a publicly available Mayor’s diary.
• Establish a forward-looking strategic advisory group to give local Hackney-owned businesses a meaningful role in forging a shared vision for our borough.
• Democratise our council’s systems by introducing participatory budgeting in Hackney to give people real power over how public money is spent in Hackney.
• Prioritise meaningful engagement in local politics for younger generations from diverse local communities by engaging with and empowering Hackney’s Youth Parliament, including by enabling them to propose budget amendments.
• Demand that the national government legislate to allow committee systems of governance for local councils again, to provide greater democratic involvement of all councillors in decision-making, rather than concentrating power in the hands of the Mayor.
• Move to a single Deputy Mayor and review cabinet costs and work patterns.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Introduce a Workforce Partnership Agreement between the council, its staff and recognised trade unions, setting out rights to voice, consultation, deputation and representation.
• Begin the preparatory work for a four-day workweek pilot to improve council staff wellbeing, increase staff retention and reduce reliance on costly agency staff.
• Stand in solidarity with workers engaged in disputes and fight nationally alongside unions for greater workers’ rights.
• Reform the existing union-management liaison committee so it is truly independent, balanced and effective by creating an impartial independent chair and ensuring equal representation between unions and management.
• Ensure unions are not discouraged from raising concerns through fear of losing space, funding or access.
• Introduce twice-yearly Mayor’s staff forums, giving council staff a direct route to raise questions and concerns with the Mayor.
• Phase out use of zero-hour contracts for leisure centre staff.
• Tackle pay inequality across Hackney Council, especially racial pay inequality.

A Green-led Hackney Council will:

• Initiate a full ethical divestment process from companies complicit in genocide, apartheid or ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, and other occupied Palestinian territories, as well as in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and other regions facing genocide, conflict and exploitation.
• Work with other London boroughs and the London Collective Investment Vehicle (which holds Hackney’s pension funds) to establish new, transparent and genuinely ethical investment funds with no ties to the arms trade, corporations complicit in genocide, fossil fuels, or gambling and tobacco companies.
• Lobby nationally for local government pension scheme regulations to enshrine the right of councils to fully divest from companies complicit in human-rights abuses and other social and environmental harms.
• Build on the Hackney Green success in passing a local ethical advertising policy prohibiting high-carbon advertising on council sites by extending this to meat and dairy adverts. We will also lobby the national government to legislate to give councils more powers to block and remove advertising sites.