It was here in the North West, in October 1964 in Manchester, that Britain’s first grassroots gay rights organization was launched – the North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee.

The Green Party intends to keep the region at the forefront of the battle for queer equality with their manifesto for a gay-friendly North West.

The North West Greens want the region’s towns and cities to be world-class gay-friendly places: ensuring equal opportunities and non-discrimination on the grounds of sexuality, gender identity and HIV status.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population deserves political allies who will work with us to benefit our community – and all communities. That is what the Greens are promising: a serious commitment in all the region’s local authorities to tackle homophobic discrimination and hate crimes, to support LGBT welfare organizations, and to affirm and celebrate queer lives and culture.

The party’s theme for this year’s elections is Real Progress - and real progress means, not least, developing a proudly diverse region, where all citizens, no matter what their sexual orientation, have the freedom to live their lives free from prejudice, discrimination, harassment and violence.

I have joined the Green Party and will be voting Green in the forthcoming elections because I believe they are the radical, progressive party of the future – for gay people and for everyone.

• The Green Party believes in enhanced local authority support for organisations serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities.

• The Greens want full LGBT equality, including full partnership, insurance, pensions, employment, and housing rights.

• Greens will push for safe and secure accommodation for local lesbian and gay migrant and asylum population, securing adequate homes outside of hate crime areas.

• Greens will back local LGBT organisations in proposals like that of the Manchester Lesbian and Gay Foundation to set up an effective "Diversity Training Package", encouraging small businesses to take on more LGBT employees and to provide a homo-friendly working environment.

• Greens will work with the police in furthering their relationship with the LGBT community, including LGBT organisations: improving the rapport between police forces and the LGBT community; highlighting queer-bashing hotspots to bring the culprits to justice; and addressing the under-reporting of hate crimes.

• Greens will strive for LGBT representation on Police Authorities to ensure a real say over policing priorities and the appointment of senior officers.

• Greens will continue to work towards non-prosecution of consenting, victimless gay offences, such as cruising. Police resources should be concentrated on violent, corporate and hate crimes and active measures to create safer cities, towns and villages.

• Greens want all police forces to ensure that homophobic remarks and behaviour by police officers are made an explicit offence under the police disciplinary code.

• Greens will support HIV Action Plan to improve safer sex education, remedy any local inadequacies in the provision of HIV services, and upgrade the standard of treatment and care. This will include pressing the government to resolve the under-funding and under-staffing of sexually-transmitted infection (STI) clinics.

• Inadequacies in mental health provisions for the LGBT community will be addressed. The Green Party will promote awareness of the largely ignored and under-resourced mental health needs of LGBT people – especially the needs of young LGBTs and those who have suffered homophobic violence and harassment.

• Greens want all companies doing business with local authorities to be required to have equal opportunities policies that prohibit discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive people; thereby enabling local authorities to take a proactive role in encouraging businesses to end homophobic discrimination.

• Greens propose to celebrate queer culture and history, for example by proposing the establishment of a local Lesbian & Gay Museum.

• Greens will work to ensure all local authorities and schools promote LGBT equality, acceptance and respect in their education policies, and will press the government to introduce a statutory obligation on local authorities and schools to combat homophobic prejudice, discrimination and bullying - modelled on the provisions of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

A Green vote means a vote for Real Progress. That means truly progressive policies for the economy, for democracy, for health and for environmental protection, and in all spheres of social justice, equality and inclusiveness. We not only want to make the North West a homophobia-free zone, but to positively and proudly celebrate gay culture.

The North West Green Party has the country’s strongest local authority Green group in Lancaster, made its electoral breakthrough onto Manchester city council last year, and is steadily building support in Liverpool and other parts of the region. To make Real Progress, we need more Greens elected in the North West this year. When our vote goes up, the other parties notice and often modify their own policies accordingly. So every Green vote tells the other parties that these are the policies you want, and puts even more pressure on them to follow our lead.

The Green Party will keep on campaigning in the North West and throughout the UK for a society that we can be proud of, where the LGBT community is treated as an essential and valued part of the country’s rich and diverse culture.