It is anyone’s guess how successful we will be, but success need not be measured purely in terms of seats won. We can already claim a degree of success as there has never been more than one Green Party candidate at previous local elections in Bridgend.

This will be an opportunity to gauge our base level support around the County and a valuable way of raising awareness that the people of Bridgend now have a new, progressive, eco-socialist option to consider.

It is clear that our time is coming. The Green Party currently has 130 councillors across 43 Councils in England & Wales; 10 on three Councils in Scotland and three in Northern Ireland. Just like our MP, MEPs, Scottish MSPs and Irish MLAs and London AMs, wherever Green councillors are elected, they are acknowledged as making a real difference.

All Greens share certain core values. These include:

1. The Earth’s physical resources are finite. We threaten our future if we try to live beyond those means, so we must build a sustainable society that guarantees our long-term future.
2. Every person, in this and future generations, should be entitled to basic material security as of right.
3. Our actions should take account of the well-being of other nations, other species, and future generations. We should not pursue our well-being to the detriment of theirs.
4. A healthy society is based on voluntary co-operation between empowered individuals in a democratic society, free from discrimination whether based on race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social origin or any other prejudice.
5. We emphasise democratic participation and accountability by ensuring that decisions are taken at the closest practical level to those affected by them.
6. The success of a society cannot be measured by narrow economic indicators, but should take account of factors affecting the quality of life for all people: personal freedom, social equity, health, happiness and human fulfillment.
7. Electoral politics is not the only way to achieve change in society, and we will use a variety of methods to help effect change, providing those methods do not conflict with our other core principles.

These values are not about short term political goals, but about the long term future we bequeath to our children and grandchildren. The values that the major parties have been living by have created the world, the country, the county and the town we live in today. Do not tell me they could not be so much better.

In standing for elected office we are taking the first steps in presenting a route to a more positive, more hopeful and more sustainable future.

We will flesh out more details of how we would achieve these goals as this and future campaigns unfold.

(National policies are available for all to see and scrutinise here: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ )