Rachel Millward

Rachel Millward
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Born	(1977-01-11) January 11, 1977 Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
Nationality	British
Occupation	Politician

Rachel Millward is a British Politician and Green Party candidate for Sussex Weald. She is Deputy Leader of Wealden District Council, as part of the Alliance for Wealden, which took control of Council in 2023 after a long run of Conservative administrations. She is Councillor for Hartfield ward, first elected at a by-election in 2021 and re-elected in May 2023. Rachel leads the Green Group at Wealden District Council.

Rachel is a Conservator of the Ashdown Forest and a founding member of the Friends of the River Medway.

Before politics Rachel's career was in cultural leadership across film, community arts and live music.

Early Life and Education

Rachel was born on January 11th 1977, and grew up in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. She went to King Henry VIII grammar school in Coventry. In the year after finishing school, Rachel volunteered as a personal assistant on an Independent Living Scheme in Islington, and then with Health Projects Abroad in Tanzania. She studied Theology at St Hugh’s College, Oxford University in 1996-99. She went on to take postgraduate studies at the African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town in 2000 - taking a Masters level course in The Politics and Theory of Development.

Cultural Career

Rachel’s first jobs were in TV production and care work for people with disabilities and the elderly. In 2002 she founded Birds Eye View, a short film event for emerging women filmmakers, with Pinny Grylls. In 2003 the pair split, and Rachel developed Birds Eye View into an international women’s film festival, launching at the National Film Theatre in 2005.

Birds Eye View Film Festival ran for a week each March in International women’s week from 2005-2014, at BFI Southbank, ICA, Curzon, Barbican cinemas. A positive challenge to the radical gender imbalance in the film industry, it showcased feature, documentary and short films from leading and emerging women filmmakers from around the world, including Suzanne Bier, Drew Barrymore, Kim Longinotto, Lena Dunham, Tracey Emin, Joanna Hogg, Marjane Satrapi and Andrea Arnold.

Each festival featured Sound & Silents: a retrospective celebration of the contribution of women to silent film, with new live scores commissioned and performed by women musicians including Imogen Heap, Bishi, Mira Calix, Micachu, Elysian Quartet and Anna Meredith.

Celebrity supporters often gave speeches at the festivals, speaking passionately about the need for women’s perspective in cinema. These included Rosamund Pike, Juliet Stevenson, Fiona Shaw, Zoe Wanamaker, Amma Asante, Hayley Atwell and Jo Brand.

The Birds Eye View Film Festival toured UK cities and summer music festivals. It also ran training programmes e.g. Last Laugh - a lab for women comedy writers moving into film, including Sally Phillips, Lucy Porter and Julia Davis which led to three feature films in development with Warp Films.

Rachel Millward was the festival director, overseeing curation, fundraising, marketing and PR campaigns each year. Funders included the UK Film Council, Arts Council England, Accenture, Coutts and Whistles. Press coverage included Guardian, Observer, Times, Independent, Financial Times, New Statesman, Elle, Vogue, Harpers, Variety, plus LBC, BBC 6 Music, Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC Breakfast and the BBC Politics Show. Partners included Oxfam and ActionAid.

In 2014 Rachel moved away from film and became the first director of a community arts centre in Hackney, The Old Church. Here she curated a month-long festival called BREATHE: a celebration of air. This centred around VOX: a multi-sensory windharp installed in the church tower, from which sound and light were transmitted into the body of the church. A varied programme of artists and collaborators were commissioned to respond to this installation, ranging from folk artists Karine Polwart and Ansuman Biswas, to Candoco Dance. Windmills made by diverse local community groups filled the church yard.

From 2016 Rachel Millward became Executive Director of Sam Lee’s Nest Collective, a leading music and nature organisation, producing and promoting regular concerts, campfire clubs and outdoor festivals, and the unique Singing With Nightingales experience, a version of which Rachel helped to develop as a touring theatre event. On her watch the organisation's turnover doubled, as did the professional team.

Since then Rachel’s main focus has been her political work with the Green Party.

Awards

In 2006 The Guardian named Rachel a ‘World Changing Woman’. In 2007 she was featured in the Vogue hotlist for women in the arts. Rachel was awarded a Clore fellowship for film in 2009-11, which provided highest level training and experience in cultural leadership. In 2010 she was named one of 50 “Women to Watch” by Arts Council England and the Cultural Leadership Fellowship. Also in 2010, Rachel was nominated for the Women of the Future, Media Award.

Political Influence

Soon after she was first elected to Wealden District Council, as a back bencher and only the third Green Councillor, Rachel brought a motion to Council designed to insist that the planning system take the pollution caused by cumulative sewage discharge into account when considering new housing developments. This became a cross-party motion and was the first motion to receive unanimous support from all Councillors (July 2022).

Rachel is the Portfolio Holder / Lead Councillor for Housing and Benefits. Since May 2023, she has brought changes to the Housing Allocations Policy, allowing fairer access to the housing register for those in need of support, and ended the Flexible Fixed Term Tenancies policy of the previous Conservative Council.

Rachel chairs a Southern Water Stakeholder Group of 28 Councils across the South East, which exists to hold Southern Water better to account and to lobby for national change to our broken water sector.

At grassroots level, Rachel has helped to bring about a new citizen science project - a collaboration between the University of Sussex and Friends of the River Medway to test the river’s health and explore the impact of nature connection on volunteers.

Rachel has twice appeared on BBC South East Politics Show, and ITV’s The Last Word alongside Conservative Lord Ed Vaisey. She is a regular on Ashdown Radio and BBC Sussex.

Family Life

Rachel lives in Wealden with her husband and two children.

External links

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