TWO new councillors in Haslington want to add a green dimension to parish meetings.

Richard McCarthy and Louise Jewkes, both members of the Green Party, were among three councillors elected unopposed to Haslington Parish Council at least week's local elections.

The council is undergoing something of a transition with two recent resignations leaving further vacancies on the parish authority. Now its new members hope they can bring some fresh ideas to the table, particularly around cycling and walking routes as well as the completion of the neighbourhood plan.

Mr McCarthy says he would like to address the wider global issue of climate emergency along with other policies of the Green Party.

The 54-year-old, who lives in Alsager but only two miles from the parish boundary, stood for the Greens for a Crewe Town Council seat last year and for the Congleton parliamentary constituency in the 2019 General Election.

He says the Greens are becoming a force locally with over 500 councillors now in place across the country.

"It is important that we can offer fresh ideas at a local level," said Mr McCarthy. "We've got to address the climate emergency as we've to make the lives of everyone as good as possible in the future.

"Encouraging people to reduce emissions and cutting back on plastic use are other things we need to look at.

"I'm in a local plastics group in Alsager and after some music events were held there was a lot of plastic rubbish. We are trying to get event organisers to make use of reusable beer glasses.

"We'd like to encourage walking or cycling by opening up pathways in the area."

Green Party colleague, Cllr Jewkes, has been involved in local opposition to a planned housing scheme on the Crewe Green roundabout, which would have effects at the western perimeter of Haslington, where she lives.

"We object to the housing plans there for a number of reasons. But one of them is that if there is future housing there or anywhere we need to be looking at housing schemes which generate their own power and not with gas boilers," added the Green Party councillor.

But while "green issues" are important to the newly-elected duo, Cllr McCarthy stresses he is delighted to be involved in the democratic process locally and says councils like Haslington do important work that recent negative publicity from Handforth and Sandbach tend to obscure from the general public.

"In fact, the parish councils do a lot of work when you consider all the documents that have to be read. It can be time-consuming and when so many people are trying to scrape a living it makes it difficult for people who are not retired to be parish councillors," he pointed out.

"It is good to have people with great knowledge, but it is important to get some fresh ideas and a younger person's take on things - and that is what we will try to do.

"But while we're with the Green Party we're not going around changing people, we're happy to work with as many people as possible."