Green Party names Andrew Gray as North East mayoral candidate

Andrew Gray is an archivist at Durham University

The Green Party has announced Andrew Gray as its candidate for the 2024 North East mayoral election.

Mr Gray, 55, works as an archivist at Durham University and has previously stood for the Greens in local council and parliamentary elections.

His manifesto includes a pledge to ensure "reliable, integrated, frequent" public transport for the North East.

Labour's Kim McGuinness, Independent Jamie Driscoll and Conservative Guy Renner-Thompson join him in the race.

The Liberal Democrats are expected to announce a candidate in the coming weeks for the election, which will see a regional figurehead chosen to govern a combined authority covering Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham.

Homes and heating

Mr Gray vowed to put communities "back in control" of the major resources set to be handed to the new regional leader if he is successful in next May's poll.

He said that, with the new North East Mayoral Combined Authority due to receive billions in government funding, money should be spent "directly within the neighbourhoods" rather than "trickling down from big regional projects".

Speaking in Durham on Friday, Mr Gray said his top priority would be to retrofit houses to make them warmer and cheaper to heat.

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He explained: "The North East is full of housing that is not well-built. It is not really acceptable in the 21st century that people are paying more and more for their fuel bills and rent while living in homes that could be more efficient.

"That is an absolute priority for me - giving people that security so they are not always on the lookout for another house because they cannot afford to pay their bills."

Mr Gray, who lives in the Heaton area of Newcastle, said he hoped to "hold other candidates' feet to the fire" over their own environmental pledges and acknowledged that some issues - such as low traffic neighbourhoods and Newcastle's Clean Air Zone - had become "political hot potatoes". 

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