Green Party candidates running in Brighton & Hove this May are pleased to endorse CPRE Sussex’s manifesto, as a natural partner to key aspects of their own. The countryside charity offers five priority areas and calls on action for each.
CPRE Sussex have asked candidates and political parties to pledge to tackle:
- Local people priced out of Sussex
- Climate breakdown
- Excessive and damaging development and intensive farming
- A lack of access to nature
- Pollution of our water, air and land.
On the issue of local people being priced out of Sussex, Greens agree that the housing market has been designed to benefit developers over people needing a place to live. Greens have delivered 497 council homes and they’ll build more in the next year, aiming to become the biggest provider of affordable rented homes across the city. To help renters and homeowners struggling with the cost-of-living crisis they will be rolling out a “warmer homes” scheme to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes, simultaneously creating jobs, cutting bills and reducing the city’s carbon footprint. Alongside this, Greens have rolled out an insulation programme of council homes. Greens will continue to build new homes, find innovative solutions to keep them warm and cheap, and introduce a landlord licensing scheme to challenge rogue landlords mistreating tenants in the private sector.
The Green Party has always been the Party leading the fight against climate breakdown, and can be trusted to embed this principle into our every day decisions and leadership. With this in mind, Greens have committed Brighton & Hove council to do everything possible to get to net zero emissions by 2030. Just some of the manifesto proposals for how they do this include creating green energy infrastructure through the building of a local solar farm, maximising the use of solar power and, where possible, applying a zero/negative carbon policy for new buildings in the city.
Greens also understand the need to protect our precious natural environments from exploitation and damage. They led the creation of the City Downland Estate Plan for the 12,800 acres of downland owned by the city. The vision behind the plan is that the City Downland Estate will be carbon negative and climate resilient, its biodiverse grassland landscape fully restored and teeming with wildlife and will be a leader in sustainable farming, where local food production will flourish. In this elections, Greens pledge to implement the Local Nature Recovery Strategy to make space for nature in the farmed landscape and the wider countryside, alongside food production.
Greens naturally agree with the importance of access to nature, and pledge to continue planting new trees across the city and facilitate cycling and active travel to and from green spaces in and around Brighton & Hove.
The final call from CPRE Sussex is to oppose the pollution of our water, air and land, which Greens have done and pledge to do further if elected for a full term. Greens will continue to demand Southern Water reduce their sewage outflows and protect the quality of water in the city’s aquifer. Greens are also excited to highlight their plans to tackle air pollution, by expanding the “Ultra Low Emissions Zone” (ULEZ) into a London-style low emissions zone for all polluting vehicles and reducing levels of traffic overall, and implementing a liveable city centre
Phélim Mac Cafferty, Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council, said:
“The climate crisis remains the greatest challenge both Brighton & Hove and the world faces, and we thank CPRE Sussex for bringing these critical issues to the forefront in this election. We will address this locally by reducing the city’s harmful emissions and improving air quality and by working with residents, organisations and businesses to help them do the same.
“Our aim is to reduce our city’s toxic emissions to net zero by 2030. We have subjected our climate actions to external scrutiny by taking part in the Carbon Disclosure Project, for which we scored A- in 2022, up from a B in 2021.
“Yet over the last few years, our progress has been hampered by opposition parties who have blocked key solutions like food waste, banning pavement parking and improving air quality. This May, vote Green for action on the climate crisis.”