Blaby Green Party is pleased to announce Mike Jelfs as the Green Party candidate for the South Leicestershire Constituency in this year’s General Election.

Mike has spent all of his life living in South Leicestershire, born and raised in Cosby and for the past 27 years living in Whetstone with his wife Zoe bringing up their daughter who has recently graduated from the University of Leicester as a Midwife and started work in the NHS.

Mike having attended Infant School in Croft Road Cosby where his mum was a dinner lady, then Primary School in Portland Street then went to Thomas Estley in Broughton Astley the year after it opened before then going to Countesthorpe College.

After Leaving School Mike’s first job was with a Land Agents in Leicester where he spent 2 days a week at Leicester Cattle Market. He then spent a couple of years working in the Garment Industry in Leicester before moving to the Nuclear Power Industry with GEC in Whetstone and then working for the largest UK Wine Wholesale Business which moved from Derby to Whetstone.

Mike has spent the last 30 years working in the Retail Sector as a Solution Architect, he first role in this industry was with George Davies in Lutterworth, where his worked until 1997. He then spent 10 years with IBM before setting up independently with his own business and successfully completed numerous long term projects for some of the largest retailers in the UK, USA and China.

In 2012 he was invited to lead a project in Shanghai. On arrival in China he questioned his local contacts about the smog - they responded “this is because we now make the stuff you used to”.

That visit inspired him to learn more about the Climate Emergency, and in recent years to become politically active and use his experience to challenge perceptions as to what can be changed and how quickly. He has now been invited to speak at a national level on the subject.

Mike if elected would campaign for more investment to be put into South Leicestershire, which despite having Tory controlled government at a national level for 14 years and at a County Level for decades has been underfunded to a point where we have lost many local services and others are severe threat.

Mike is particularly interested in Public Transport and Active Travel where investment has been virtually non existent, He would like to see ideas such as the rebuilding of a railway station at Blaby and the reinstatement of a line to Lutterworth investigated further. He would also like to see it made safe for children to cycle to school across the constituency. At a national level he is fully supportive of a Wealth Tax for the top 1% of the population with assets of over £3.5 million pounds,this would raise the funds required for the Green Party initiatives to insulate homes and supply a universal basic income helping to remove people from poverty across the country. Follow Mike on Social Media, X, Facebook and now TikTok for his latest updates.