Meet Suffolk Coastal's Green Party councillors
East Suffolk District Council is led by the Green Party's Caroline Topping and run by a majority group of 16 Green councillors, 11 Liberal Democrats and one independent.
Your Green councillors in Suffolk Coastal are:
TOM DALY
Aldeburgh & Leiston
I was elected councillor for Aldeburgh & Leiston in 2021, and following the May elections in 2023 was appointed Cabinet Member for Energy and Climate Change.
I have lived in East Anglia for more than thirty years and in East Suffolk for 22 years. With qualifications in Countryside Management and Human Ecology, and a long career managing teams working to support asylum seekers, I have broad experience to use in representing our communities and enhancing our ecosystems, when both main parties at Westminster seem to have lost all holistic vision.
Aldeburgh and Leiston Ward is at the heart of a district that is the major location for planned Nationally Strategic Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). A central task of my portfolio is to influence all these NSIPs – if they are constructed – to be as Green and community-centred as possible. This includes ensuring that Offshore Wind projects and Sizewell C adhere to their commitments and obligations, so that adverse impacts are appropriately mitigated for community benefit.
As a Green led coalition, East Suffolk Council is now making the changes that matter to a decent future for all our residents; climate change, biodiversity, social housing, planning, infrastructure, community and livelihoods. They are all being worked on by an increasingly impressive team of councillors and officers for the common good.
Katie Graham
Aldeburgh & Leiston
Katie was elected in May 2023. With a background in music performance and education, she moved here with her young family to be closer to nature and be part of a rural community rich in culture and heritage.
She is a passionate environmental campaigner, and helped to establish the now very active Suffolk local group of Greenpeace where she led on many campaigns including on the joint cost of living and climate crises, as well as marine protection and plastic pollution.
Since joining the Council she has been working hard with her fellow ward members to defend residents and the local environment against poorly planned energy infrastructure projects for the area, and finding ways to support community projects that seek to address the climate and biodiversity crisis.
As a parent and deputy portfolio holder for Communities, Leisure and Tourism, creating opportunities and support for young people is a particular concern. She also wants to emphasise the role that art, performance and music have in bringing our communities together and contributing to our better emotional health.
Sarah Whitelock
Aldeburgh & Leiston
I feel privileged to live on this wonderful coastline and am totally committed to saving it from the pointless destruction planned by National Grid and Sizewell C. So many of us are angry that this country has failed to invest in the insulation, solar panels, onshore wind or offshore grid network that would make these projects unnecessary and would prevent so many people, still dependent on fossil fuels, from living in fuel poverty and making the impossible choice between heating and eating. When I learned that the District Council’s previous Conservative majority had voted to be ‘neutral’ on the energy projects I felt compelled to stand against them.
Results in May 2024 confirmed that residents are totally sick of Conservative leadership, and the Green Party won in every ward where we campaigned. Greens also either won or came close in wards where we did no campaigning at all, and as the largest group we form the GLI administration of East Suffolk Council with the Liberal Democrat councillors and one independent.
Despite my lack of political experience I am now proud to be councillor for the Aldeburgh and Leiston Ward and a member of the Cabinet at East Suffolk Council, responsible for Communities, Leisure and Tourism. I have contributed to the ‘route map’ we have produced for the term of this administration, which you can see by following this link.
A key objective is tackling inequalities, and many parts of this ambition fall within my portfolio. We have to find imaginative ways to support residents who are suffering during the cost of living crisis, while also creating routes to enable residents to be more resilient. Leisure Centres can be a powerful tool in this, so I aim to encourage residents to explore activity such as free swimming lessons or walking football, to improve mental and physical health. When leisure centres all over the country are closing, East Suffolk is also driving down leisure centres' carbon emissions and planning for them to be net zero by 2030.
Ward issues take up much of my time, attending town and parish council meetings and contributing to committees that decide the future of local projects. I am a member of the Leiston Place Board (planning the future for the town centre), the Sizewell C site forum and the local Community Partnership. Each councillor is able to distribute some funds for projects of community value, so if you wish to bid for a grant or raise an issue with me please get in touch.
DAN CLERY
Carlford & Fynn Valley
Born in Essex, raised in Canada, and resident in Suffolk for the past 18 years, I turned to the Greens in desperation over the failure of other parties to take climate change seriously.
Twice I stood in local elections as a Green before success in 2023. During a long career in science journalism, I’ve written about many promising alternative energy technologies only to see them flounder from lack of funding.
The success of solar and wind energy shows what a little government funding can do to get technologies off the ground. If a tiny fraction of what the fossil fuel industry pays its shareholders were diverted to energy research, we would be in a much better position to tackle the climate crisis with the help of working tidal and wave energy, grid storage, superconducting transmission lines, and even solar power stations in space (yes, I’m serious).
As a regular writer about astronomy, I wonder at the fact that, despite decades of trying, we have not found any signs of life elsewhere in the universe. It suggests that habitable planets may be rare.We should treat ours with more care and respect.
Vince Langdon-Morris
Framlingham
I was proud to be elected as an East Suffolk Councillor for Framlingham ward in May 2023, and am now also the Cabinet member for Resources and Value for Money, overseeing the council budgets and finances.
I've had a lifelong passion for the natural world and have worked in both agriculture and the environment in the UK, Asia and right across Africa. My strong sense is that politicians simply have no choice but to work in a more collegiate way (from all political persuasions) to face the climate crisis that we face, and I’ve seen first-hand the havoc that climate change is causing. We must push back and defeat the ongoing ‘tragedy of the commons’ and foster far more community ownership of our living environment, for both ourselves and future generations.
Framlingham has experienced two emergencies in the past three years, covid and flooding. Both have severely impacted my town in negative but also surprisingly positive ways. In March 2020, in the early days of covid, my neighbours formed a WhatsApp group that operates to this day. This, in my view, is a great example of how communities can get back together and help each other out.
Framlingham no longer has a physical bank, and our post office was badly damaged in the recent flooding. Losing our critical community infrastructure is very traumatic for residents. Framlingham Town Council has established a Flood Resilience working group that has met and now developed an Emergency Response Plan. It has also funded a local expert to do a flood assessment and hosted a well-attended public meeting to discuss this.
I'm helping Thomas Mills and Framlingham College Eco Councils to establish wildflower gardens, working with teachers and students. In response to Framlingham ward residents, I have been pressing Suffolk County Council to deal with potholes and remove roadkill more quickly. It's all in a very busy day's work.
Rachel Smith-Lyte
MELTON
An East Suffolk native, Rachel attended Farlingaye High school and has since worked for an environmental conservation charity in Norwich and at RSPB Minsmere, as well as in the Far East teaching street kids amongst other occupations.
A long-time activist with Greenpeace and later Extinction Rebellion, she realised that with the looming climate and biodiversity crisis, she needed to get involved politically. She joined the Green Party in 2011 and has stood three times in local elections and in the 2015 and 2019 General Elections gaining 6% of the vote share thus retaining the Party’s deposit for the first time in the area. In May 2019 she secured her first seat – on East Suffolk Council – the first Green to be elected in the old Suffolk Coastal district.
She is passionate about protecting the area’s natural environment from inappropriate development and the links between sustainable transport and improved air quality. Her other interests include localism and 'passiv haus' affordable housing as part of a post-growth society.
Tim Wilson
Rendlesham & Orford
Tim was elected as District Councillor for Rendlesham and Orford Ward on 4th May 2023 and is Deputy Portfolio Holder for Resources and Value For Money, and Chair of the Licensing Committee. He attends eight parish council meetings regularly, at Blaxhall, Tunstall, Iken, Orford & Gedgrave, Rendlesham, Sudbourne, Wantisden and Chillesford. There are over seven thousand constituents in the ward, and issues of concern include housing, transport and highway maintenance, protection of the natural environment, and community cohesion.
Tim grew up in East Anglia and worked in London for sixteen years in the creative industries as a business owner and arts producer. He is an AGILE project manager and qualified to foundation level with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountancy.
Sally Noble
Wickham Market
I have lived in Melton for 17 years with my husband and two sons. My background is in retail management, but I have always been fascinated by nature and am an avid wildlife gardener – and hedgehog rescuer.
I am deputy cabinet member for the Environment, supporting Rachel Smith-Lyte with that portfolio, and Chair of the Community Partnership for all the parishes in this ward including Wickham Market, Framlingham, Kelsale and Yoxford. I work with the Council's brilliant officers to deliver future projects that will benefit all our residents, including community fridges and cooking, rural transport and youth events. One example already launched is Wild About Wickham, a community initiative aimed at getting people involved with helping nature recovery and doing their bit for biodiversity.
I have been very busy helping flood victims across the ward and am continuing to do so. This also includes working with communities to become more resilient and also more prepared for future emergencies.
I join my fellow Green and coalition councillors in opposing the damaging energy projects which will industrialise our beautiful coastline and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and bring dangerous and polluting heavy traffic on to our rural roads and through the quiet villages of my ward.
Stephen Molyneux
WOODBRIDGE
Steve was elected to East Suffolk District Council in May 2023. As Deputy Portfolio Handler for Planning and Coastal Management, he has made it a priority to get better standards of energy efficiency and biodiversity into our planning. He is also Vice Chair of Audit and Governance, Chair of Melton, Woodbridge and Deben Peninsula Community Partnership, is on the Scrutiny Committee, the board for the Cycling & Walking Strategy and the Environmental Task Group.
A local business owner, he has been connected to Woodbridge for over a decade. "The outstanding beauty of this area made Woodbridge an easy choice where to start where to start our family," he says. After running an arts charity for eleven years in London, Stephen also helped start the UK edition of leading architects' publication Passive House Plus, and worked to incentivise low energy building in the UK.
Stephen says: "I've really enjoyed acclimatising to the council and feel our administration has brought about a fresh enthusiasm and work ethic. For me it's great to see how various initiatives overlap, exploring how we can take advantage of opportunities for a more joined up way of working. Some of my key focuses are on better energy efficiency in new builds as well as reducing the embodied carbon in construction materials. I'm also pushing for our green infrastructure to be connected via green corridors which we can achieve via farm clusters, rewilding and well-designed active travel routes. I'm passionate about exploring local building systems which can feed into our quest for more social housing. I want to see East Suffolk become a leading provider in retrofitting solutions and cost-effective delivery of highly energy efficient, low embodied carbon buildings that we can also provide to the private market. This will cut to the core of solving so many more issues than releasing carbon into the atmosphere. These buildings will be healthier to be in, lift people out of fuel poverty and bolster our local economy.