Laura Hänsler has announced she is standing with Alba Party, setting out a personal case rooted not in party loyalty but in years of frontline work across Scotland’s public services and infrastructure campaigns.
In a detailed statement explaining her decision, she described a career shaped by engineering, science and public health before stepping into national campaigning.
She trained first as an engineer and worked for many years in industry before graduating with a BSc in Parasitology from Glasgow and moving into the NHS as a Senior Health Promotion Practitioner in cardiac care.
She worked in some of Scotland’s most deprived communities, leading prevention programmes aimed at reducing cardiovascular risk and tackling long standing health inequality.
That work fed into national strategy discussions and government white papers focused on prevention and long term public health planning.
Alongside that professional life, she describes herself as a disabled single mother who understands personally what it means when systems fail and policy does not match lived reality.
“For many years, my work has not been defined by party politics, but by outcomes.”
She traces her entry into national campaigning to what she calls avoidable harm on the A9.
She initiated and led the A9 Dualling and Road Safety Campaign, a movement that secured a full parliamentary inquiry, full chamber debates, sustained ministerial scrutiny and formal commitments that would not have materialised without prolonged pressure.
She continues to support bereaved families and those living with life changing injuries linked to the route.
“So why Alba?
“Why now?
“Because the Highlands cannot continue to be treated as an extraction zone.”
She argues that while the Highlands and Islands are rich in oil and gas expertise and renewable energy potential, communities face some of the highest energy costs in the UK.
She said families are forced into impossible choices while vast quantities of power generated locally are transmitted elsewhere.
She said Alba’s “Onshore No More” campaign reflects a growing belief that rural Scotland cannot absorb continuous industrial expansion without consequence.
“We are already producing more energy than we consume.
“The issue is not generation capacity, but fairness.
“That means a genuine social tariff for vulnerable households and a truly reflective zonal pricing model, so that the communities who host infrastructure see tangible benefit from it.
“With fair pricing and strategic investment, we can tackle fuel poverty, protect rural ecology, and attract industry back to Scotland’s heartlands.”
She concludes that her record is evidence based and action driven rather than rhetorical.
She said she will continue to stand with communities across the Highlands and Islands and follow through on commitments.
