West Central London Green Party’s London Assembly Constituency Candidate: RAJIV SINHA
“Thank you all so much for your support. I am looking forward to doing my best to represent West Central London with Green values in 2024!”
I have lived in the constituency my whole life. It is my home – I know its communities, its people, and its businesses. I have lived, been schooled, and been employed here. I believe I am well positioned to represent the area and its residents in line with our Green values and fantastic policy programme.
This position, combined with my candidacy at the parliamentary level and local level, means that I have been able to address issues facing communities in a holistic way. I have campaigned across our boroughs, and am a board trustee of local charity Paddington Development Trust, which provides crucial healthcare, education, and employment services. I have also worked with elected Green officials and candidates, including Zack Polanski and Zoe Garbett, on various campaigns. Recently Zoe and I met up with representatives of Living Streets, an organisation dedicated to creating a better walking environment for Londoners.
I also helped to welcome West Central’s very first councillor over from Labour, Mona Adam. I created the leafleting routes for Golborne in North Kensington, which we used to inform the ward’s residents of this good news.
As local council candidate for my wonderful ward of Pimlico North, I have spent many hours marching around the area with leaflets alongside Kathy, who deserves special mention, and many others whom I thank. I have worked on holding my local council to account and spreading food recycling bins around the area.
My main priorities for the constituency are homelessness, housing, food recycling, and air quality. Homelessness is a tragedy that also happens to be a political choice. Successive governments from establishment parties have made it clear that this tragedy is not a top priority for them. The Finnish capital city Helsinki shows that a series of relatively simple decisions can essentially end homelessness if the political will is there. Housing is a big issue too, with not enough social housing and not nearly enough intermediate housing. It is unacceptable that intermediate housing – listed on the london.gov.uk website as ‘one of the main forms of affordable homes built in London’ – should be so lacking in the constituency in which the government sits.
After devoting a few days to talking to the building manager and tens of residents of my apartment block, I brought food waste recycling bins to around 30 people. I am very keen to talk to the council about more hastily spreading this around the area. This has been a council plan for a long time, but it has been subject to far too many delays. With the amazing help of James, I have also been monitoring air quality in Westminster and would like to press local authorities on some findings.”