A NINE-YEAR programme to tackle carbon pollution is the pledge of the newly-chosen Green Party candidate for the role of West Midlands Metro Mayor.

But Steve Caudwell is also putting public transport improvements high on his priority list.

Mr Caudwell, the Opposition Leader on Solihull Council, was announced as the candidate this week.

He immediately accused the current Mayor Andy Street of ‘failing to tackle the big problems’ and said that the region needed to ‘balance the books’ on carbon by 2030.

“ As Mayor, I will bring in the 2030 target we need to have a chance of averting the the massive disruption to our way of life that’s heading toward us.

“It is also a massive opportunity for our region to become a Green economic powerhouse.”

He accused Mr Street of presiding over an increase in child poverty since 2017. “I will do what it takes to give dignity and hope back to our residents.”

And on public transport he said: “We hear a lot of promises and plans from Andy Street, but we don’t see action. I will deliver the integrated system we all need to help us leave the car at home.”

Councillor James Burn, the Green Party’s candidate in 2017, said, “Last time around Andy Street promised that we could judge whether or not he’d been successful by how far he had tackled the levels of poverty that scar so much of our region.

“In the main, he’s just delivered more of the same economics that have delivered more of the same results –nearly two from every five children living in poverty and more and more people sleeping rough on the streets.”