Weca mayoral elections: Mary Page
Mary PageOn Thursday 1 May voters in the West of England will decide on their next regional mayor.
You can find more information about the election and the candidates here.
The West of England Combined Authority (Weca) is a local authority encompassing the council areas of Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) and South Gloucestershire. The Authority is led by the West of England Mayor.
Mary Page is the Green Party candidate.
She played a key role in reshaping local politics
Despite briefly standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bristol Mayor in 2020, two years later she led the referendum campaign that ultimately abolished the role and replaced it with a committee system.
She says the West of England Mayoral role is 'different' and that she left the Liberal Democrat party "because it ceased to serve the needs of the people I want to represent".
She says she is standing 'for the people'
Mary Page says she is standing for Weca for similar reasons as to why she ran the campaign to scrap the mayor of Bristol - because the role is not "delivering stuff that people want to get done".
Adult skills are a key priority for her
One of the area's Weca has responsibility for is adult education.
Ms Page sauys she is keen to look at how the authority invests in adult skills.
She added she wants to enable businesses to start and to "scale up" within the region and also wants to look at introducing courses that fit around different working hours for those who want to change their careers.
She wants to avoid 'tribal politics'
Ms Page says she is "deeply committed to the Green Party" and believes they can bring "real change".
She admits that they "don't always have all of the best ideas" and that it is important to use "all of the talents of all of the people in this region so that everybody gets some benefit".
Weca has been at the centre of several disagreements between the outgoing mayor and council leaders.
Ms Page says: "The role of Weca mayor requires diplomacy not divisive tribal politics."
Transport to support the climate
Ms Page has pledged to use public transport during her campaign and will be listening to ideas from the public.
One of her current ideas is to build on the existing Birthday Bus scheme by introducing a new "freedom pass" that could offer residents a free day per week of public transport use.
She worked in marketing and public relations
Previously, Ms Page worked for BBC Radio Sheffield, as well as other communication roles.
She was also a political advisor at South Gloucestershire Council.
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