05 Mar 2025
Meeting with council candidates is a really important way to understand their priorities and a chance to identify how committed they are to acting on the climate and nature emergencies.
You should arrange to meet with candidates as a group so that you can show your collective power and how much support there is for climate action in your local area.
It’s a great opportunity to:
- Discuss ways you think your area can become as climate friendly as possible.
- Influence the manifesto commitments made by candidates.
That’s why it’s important to try to secure a meeting as early as possible, before such commitments are made publicly.
This step-by-step guide will help you secure a meeting with council candidates and give you tips on preparing for the meeting, plus it provides guidance on what to look out for during the meeting and how to follow up.
Step 1: Ask candidates to meet
For local council elections, it’s likely there will be lots of candidates, so you won’t be able to meet with them all. We suggest you prioritise meeting with the leaders of your local political parties or all the candidates standing for election in your ward.
If you'd like to find out more about possible elections (and candidates) in your area, visit whocanivotefor.co.uk. Please note that in some areas, candidates might not officially declare their candidacy until April.
Remember to remain politically impartial in all your campaigning. Read our political impartiality guidance for more information.
Step 2: Prepare
It’s a good idea for your group to meet a few days before the meeting to prepare, agree your agenda and decide who'll say what. Spend a bit of time researching the candidate online to understand more about who they are and what they stand for, and think through how you might tailor the conversation to the candidate's strengths and interests.
As a start, make sure you find out:
- Their political party
- Their political career
- Whether they made a speech declaring their candidacy
- Statements of commitments they've already made on climate and nature.
You can use these meetings to secure commitments from your candidates on your local campaign ask. If you don't have a local campaign priority at the moment, we recommend picking 2 or 3 priorities from our template Climate Action Plan that you think are of most importance to your group and the area.
Remember, you don't need to be an expert on a subject to speak to electoral candidates about it – your role is to raise issues you care about and ask them to commit to prioritising these.
If your meeting will be online, practise using the technology ahead of time, including testing your microphone and webcam. Have a look at our guidance for setting up an online meeting on Zoom for more information.
Step 3: Meet
Ahead of the meeting, you should assign roles to those attending. For an online meeting, this might be someone to keep an eye on the chat field, a timekeeper, someone to take notes and a tech tsar to troubleshoot any problems.
- Clear introductions. In an online meeting, make sure your screen name includes your name and the group you represent. If you're meeting in person, give time for everyone to go round and briefly introduce themselves. Be careful not to get drawn into lengthy introductions, as you won't have much time.
- Keep conversations on track. Candidates may not always answer the questions you ask of them and may use a number of diversion techniques such as talking a lot, shifting the theme of the conversation or talking about something they or their party are doing that doesn’t answer the question. Be bold and prepared to use conversation turners like "sorry, but can I just bring you back to the question..." or "that sounds great, but can you tell us specifically...".
- Stick to your ask(s). Similar to the above, make sure your conversation stays focused on your asks, and don’t leave the meeting without getting answers to your questions. At the same time, if it becomes evident that the candidate isn't going to agree to your asks or even a compromise, then be prepared to think on your feet and change track towards a plan B.
- Take a photo. At the end of your meeting, take a screenshot (with cameras on) if online or a photo if in person of you all with the candidate. You can use this for press and social media work. Send the photo to the candidate and ask them to share it on their social media channels – see guidance below. If the candidate is supportive, ask them to hold up an A3 pledge poster.
- Thank you. Thank the candidate for their time, and summarise any commitments they've made together with any follow-up actions.
Keep an eye on the time. Candidates will be busy and may only have a short time slot to meet with you, so you’ll need to be careful not to get caught up in distracting conversations that aren't central to your asks. Get quickly to your point and your main ask, keep it simple and don’t try to cover too much ground.
Step 4: Follow up
After the meeting, email the candidate to thank them again for their time, re-state anything they committed to during the meeting and attach any further information they might find useful.
We also recommend asking them to commit to attending a hustings if you're organising one. Even if you don’t have the date and logistical details sorted yet, it's helpful to get a commitment in principle.
Post the photo on your social media platforms using the hashtag #CouncilElections and #ClimateAction, and tag the candidate so they can see it too and hopefully reshare.
Draft a press release about the meeting, including a quote about any noteworthy commitments the candidate has made. And finally, email [email protected] to let us know how it went.
What next?
Some candidates will be supportive of your asks and others will be resistant to making commitments.
If you have the candidate's support...
You may meet a candidate who's either publicly already on side, or who you’ve spoken with before and know agrees with your demands. If that’s the case, this is an opportunity to push them further. As well as asking them to make sure their manifesto commits to making the local area as climate- and nature-friendly as possible, you can ask them to:
- Publicly support or share some of your asks on their social media accounts.
- Commit to attending a hustings to debate the issues with other candidates.
- Take a photo with the pledge poster.
If the candidate isn't on board...
Don't give up hope! Remember, meeting with candidates is only one route to creating change – you can also take other actions in the lead-up to the elections, like holding a hustings, running a social media campaign or engaging local media with your campaign.
If you need additional support, please get in touch with your regional contact at Friends of the Earth – they'll be able to advise on next steps and approach. Alternatively, email [email protected]
Don’t forget you can also apply to the local action group fund if you need financial support for activities around the elections.
