LORNA Slater has insisted that the Scottish Greens can “hold the balance of power just about anywhere” in Scotland following next month’s council elections.

The Scottish Greens co-leader also said her party is happy to work in coalition with other parties, except the Scottish Conservatives.

The Greens launched their manifesto for the local elections – with Ms Slater pointing to the need for local authorities to focus on traffic reduction and public transport plans.

The manifesto includes Green councillors supporting improved bus services and re-opening railways, ensuring all authorities have a zero-waste plan by 2025 and make free childcare hours more flexible.

The blueprint also commits Green councillors to support immediately cancelling all outstanding debt owed by families for school meals and support introducing a workplace parking levy “in areas where this would be appropriate and beneficial”. 

Speaking at the launch of the manifesto, Ms Slater stressed that her party is “standing more candidates in this election than any other local authority election”.

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She said that at a local level, action is needed in response to the “starkest warning yet that we need to cut climate emissions fast”.

She said: “Councils across Scotland need to prioritise traffic reduction, 20-minute neighbourhoods and public and active travel.

“We are in a climate and nature emergency and many of the decisions that make the most impact on the ground are made by councils. That’s the reason we say ‘think global, act local’.”

Ms Slater appealed for voters to “give the Scottish Greens their first preference vote”.

She warned that “second or third preferences will not get Greens elected”, warning that ”our councils could stagnate under the old style politics”.

Asked whether the Greens would be happy to enter coalition of co-operation with other parties on local authorities, Ms Slater said: “The Scottish Greens believe in consensus, negotiation and grown-up politics and we’ve shown in Holyrood that working with other parties can lead to good governance and that grown-up sense of politics that we all want to see.

“Greens are absolutely interested in working with other parties.

We wouldn’t work with the Scottish Tories but other parties who have common interests – to make sure that we deliver all of what we want to deliver in terms of active travel, nature restoration, better recycling – all those things matter.

“It will, of course, depend on the exact electoral maths in each council – but there’s the possibility that Greens could hold the balance of power just about anywhere.

Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said that his party’s appeal for extra funding for local government has not changed now he is in coalition with the SNP at Holyrood.

He said: “I’ve been consistently pushing for extra resources for local government and yes, again this year, there was extra money announced for local government at the final stage of the Scottish budget.

“Whether we’ve been in opposition or in government, we have a constructive challenge to bring to politics and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”

He added: “It’s not just about central funding – it’s about the powers.

“It would be bizarre to a lot of other European countries for local government to be so completely dependent on central government and block grants.

“We’ve made a good start on a couple of areas that are decentrailising power but we need to do more. That’s why the Citizens’ Assembly on how we fund local government is really, really important.

“Session after session after session of the Scottish Parliament has been deadlocked on how we reform council tax and having a decent form of local taxation to replace it. We need to break that deadlock and that’s why we think the Citizen’s Assembly can do.”