About Ellie
Meet Ellie
I’m standing to be the next MP for North Herefordshire. I’ve lived here for 20 years.
I brought up both my children here – they went to Ashperton Primary, then to John Masefield High School in Ledbury. My kids grew up playing for local football and rugby teams, and are 100% rooted here.
I live on a mixed organic farm, and I really value the strong farming heritage of this area. I love walking on the Malvern Hills, and cycling in the country lanes.
I’ve always done jobs about making the world a fairer and greener place.
I started my career working for charities. I’ve worked for Christian Aid on health programmes, for Friends of the Earth on road traffic reduction. I’ve worked in Uganda on peace projects, and in East London tackling fuel poverty. And for 6 years I worked for a Hereford-based international development charity.
When my youngest started school, I studied a PhD on rural water supply and ended up becoming a university lecturer! I really love teaching; it’s great to be working with the next generation.
I got involved in politics in 2015, at age 40. I couldn’t stand by any more – I was concerned about the direction of politics and I felt a responsibility to try to make things better.
One of the things I’ve done is hold events in 31 village halls from Kington to Colwall, and Leintwardine to Upton Bishop (see the locations on the map). These have been public meetings to explain what I’m standing for and listen to peoples hopes and concerns.
We all deserve politics being more considerate and more responsible.
Ellie’s track record
I got involved in politics because I was so frustrated at the lack of progress. I just wanted to work for us all and get things done. Being a councillor it’s been my privilege to do just that.
I work with local people on things that really matter to them. Whether that’s getting potholes fixed, sorting a bus service out, planning issues, housing challenges – I get lots of satisfaction from doing my best to support local people.
At Herefordshire council I’m really proud that our coalition with the independents (2019-2023) got things done, tackling the difficult issues that had been neglected for far too long. Holding the cabinet portfolio for economy and environment I was able to create real change. We pushed hard on solving river pollution. We put £3m into creating wetlands and lobbied government to enforce legislation.
I’m also really proud that as a council we sorted out today’s problems while making things better for the future too. We helped people with fuel costs by setting up new community car pools, we provided free weekend buses to help the covid recovery and we ran the Shop Local card scheme that gave everyone a gift card to help support local businesses.
I loved being Green MEP for the West Midlands in 2019. I donated half of my parliamentary salary to local charities. I pushed for action on improving trade, development and agriculture and held a youth climate assembly. I met thousands of people over the summer, joining in with festivals and events across the West Midlands, to hear their concerns and ideas.