THE new Green Party candidate for Barrow and Furness has been announced. 

Lorraine Wrennall, who grew up in Hindpool, has been selected as the new Green Party prospective parliamentary candidate for Barrow and Furness constituency in the upcoming General Election.

She said Hindpool is one of the four wards in Barrow consistently featuring in government surveys assessing factors of deprivation such as income, employment, education and skills, health and disability, crime, and housing. 

Ms Wrennall pursued a career in health, particularly Public Health, with specialisms in health promotion, communications and tackling inequalities. She said her drive to make a difference in Furness stems from personal experience, knowing first-hand local concerns such as the impact of a parent being made redundant from the shipyard.  

Ms Wrennall is not the only new Green Party candidate in Cumbria with Susan Denham-Smith set to stand in Penrith and Solway and Cumberland Councillor Jill Perry for Whitehaven and Workington. 

"We’re ordinary people with real-life struggles who've had enough of the current government," Ms Wrennall said, a member of the Green Party.

"We want to make sure voters are given a real alternative. 

"We each have a need, a personal conviction, to stand up against empty promises and repeated mismanagement of public services and natural resources.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not yet announced a date for the general election.

Mr Sunak should not call an election just because polls suggest the public appear to want him out of Downing Street, a government minister said.

Dame Andrea Leadsom said: "You don't you don't call a general election just because there is a particular mood or a particular situation."

Mr Sunak has indicated the election will be in the second half of 2024, and on Sky News Dame Andrea suggested it would be in the autumn.

In response to the assertion that the Prime Minister does not have the support of the nation, according to polls, Dame Andrea said: "We have periodic general elections, and the Prime Minister has set out quite clearly an autumn timeframe.

"You don't call a general election just because there is a particular mood or a particular situation, that very, very rarely happens."

Sitting MP Simon Fell will contest the Furness again for the Conservatives, Michelle Scrogham, the mayor of Ulverston, is standing for Labour while Adrian Waite has been announced as the Liberal Democrat candidate.