PENNY Burgess is part of the burgeoning Greens, a party that has leapt from the fringes of politics and is now vying with the main parties. Reporter Jack Pitts went to meet Penny to find out why she thinks the Greens have a real chance on May 7.  

 

Born in Cirencester to “staunch socialists” and educated at Deer Park, Penny graduated from the University of Warwick and got a job at Abbey National as a cashier.

After a spell in head office she returned to the Cotswolds, becoming branch manager before starting up her own business printing t-shirts in Cheltenham.

She now manages 11 people at Ecotricity in Stroud, a job she loves but will give up if she becomes MP.

Penny was a member of the Liberal Democrats before she discovered the greens.

“It was only when I started looking into the Greens that I realised how many of their policies I believed in,” she said.

She became a candidate in June 2014 after a Green Party hustings.

“The thing for me is the austerity, I felt I couldn’t stand on the sidelines anymore and I just wanted to do something for the Cotswolds.

“Although it’s an affluent area there are pockets of poverty and children there do not get the same opportunities, I want to do something about that.”

Housing is a huge issue for Penny, where she believes young people are getting a raw deal.

“When I worked at Abbey National, a house cost three and a half times a year’s salary, now it’s more like ten times, it’s something that needs changing, especially for young people.

“It’s not just buying but also renting where the quality of places can be terrible

As Green Party candidate, the environment is key, and as well as working for a sustainable energy company she once rode an electric bicycle more than 1,000 miles from John o’Groats to Land’s End.

“The environment runs through everything we do as a party, we do not have a planet B. What we’re doing at the moment is just unsustainable,” she said.

“We have just got to stop using more recourses than we have.”

On saving the NHS, Penny is unequivocal.

“We support giving the NHS however much it needs to make it work,” she said.

“I’m quite passionate about the NHS. I can’t see any reason why there should be a profit motive and at the moment there are a lot of people making an awful lot of money out of it.

“The NHS should be run by the people who know how to run it.” 

Penny supports staying inside the EU, though she believes in a referendum in the interests of democracy.

She also believes in scrapping tuition fees “across the board”, as well as trident, which she said is a “throw back from the cold war” and unnecessary in the modern world.

Penny believes she has a strong chance of unseating Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who has been the Cotswold MP for 23 years.

She said: “One of the most searched terms during the leaders’ debate was: ‘how can I get involved in the Green Party in the Cotswolds?’ That really shows how interested people are.

“I went to see people near Dursley who were being kicked out of their allotments and I thought ‘I can really do something to help’ it really affirmed why I wanted to be an MP.

“I don’t want a second home and I don’t want to go on jaunts in China.

“Really, I just want to help the Cotswolds.”