Not surprisingly, the national media’s focus in recent months has been on the rise of Reform UK. Whilst that party’s trajectory has been astounding, rising to top of the national polls, winning council by-elections all over the country and taking control of numerous councils at the 2025 elections, there is another party making strong progress. They have also elected a new leader, Zack Polanski, who seems to promise a more radical approach.
From a few scattered council seats, mostly in leafy university towns/cities, the Green Party is now a significant force in local government, including here in the Midlands.
The Green Party now control Warwick District Council and is the junior partner in coalitions running Malvern Hills (Worcestershire) and Harborough (Leicestershire). They also hold positions of influence across numerous councils. In the 2026 elections they will be targeting further gains in Solihull, where they are the main opposition party, as well as Birmingham and Coventry, where they have recently gained seats.
Their national platform is radical but what does it mean when they come face to face with the harsh realities of local government?
A party that prides itself on having bold policies on wealth redistribution, environmental protections and human rights has often found the challenges of governing locally to be an uphill struggle. They have for example, made national headlines in both Brighton and Bristol over controversial changes to bin services.
In Warwick, examples of bold green policies that work in the real world include becoming the first council in England to introduce soft plastic recycling for every household and funding one of the largest retrofit programmes of council housing that will bring all homes to at least EPC rating of C.
Warwick is working with Stratford-on-Avon to produce a new South Warwickshire local plan. It will be interesting to see whether the Greens in Warwick and the Liberal Democrats, who run Stratford, can maintain political agreement whilst balancing their stated objectives of ‘conservation and enhancement of the natural environment and measures to address climate change mitigation and adaptation’ with the need to deliver new homes and employment.
The question the Green Party will have to answer soon is, in a world where local government has a consensus on introducing ‘green’ policies, what is the difference a Green led council can make and how to they tackle the ‘radical’ policies of Reform who now appear as the ‘outsider’ for most UK voters.
