You know the type.

• They do nothing to improve the city’s recycling system – one of the nation’s worst at just under 30 percent.
• They create artificially engineered gridlock with nonsensical road schemes to deliberately delay and obstruct traffic and force it round one-way systems with few parking spaces in order to justify the eventual introduction of a ULEZ charging scheme.
• They block Park and Ride schemes.
• They don’t value heritage, despite the fact it is Brighton and Hove’s USP – unique selling point – and has stood the test of time, representing the ultimate in recycling. They would rather prioritise newbuilds with an estimated 50 year lifespan, making them little better than pre-fabs.
• They try to build on two nature reserves – Benfield Valley and Whitehawk Hill.
• They ignore the council’s own Tall Buildings policy and appear to wave all overdevelopment through.
• They allow fish to die in Queen’s Park pond during heatwaves.
• They cut down the nation’s oldest environmental initiative – the Victorian Green Wall on Madeira Drive – in Wildlife season – a crime against the Wildlife Act and then seek to destroy the Japanese spindle trees nearby on the grounds they ‘aren’t native’.
• They dig out Hove Lawn hedges in Wildlife season – a crime against the Wildlife Act – in their haste to erect Linear Park
• They let street trees grow out of hand and then use lack of tree maintenance as an excuse to chop them down and get rid of the street tree planting scheme
• They plant £400,000 worth of new trees around the city and then let them die owing to lack of care.
• They use Ash dieback and Dutch Elm disease as an excuse to cut down thousands of trees, yet a large number of cut down trees are found to have healthy stumps.
• They take over management of the city’s allotments with the result that citizens are made to wait for years as no regular checks are done to find out which plots are no longer in use.
• They allow Southern Water to release raw sewage into the sea and pollute without penalty.
• They waste money and resources by, for example – re-lining King’s Road paddling pool with the wrong materials – then closing it down to families for safety reasons in the height of summer, seemingly permanently.
• They keep lights on in public buildings overnight when subtle exterior architectural lighting would suffice.
• They close public toilets which will lead to environmental and public health issues.

Owing to a non-joined up school allocations policy, many children are allocated to schools outside of their catchment area which means vehicles are required to drive them there and back.

We believe in down-to-earth environmentalism taking a ‘First, do no harm’ approach.

Real environmentalism is:

1. Deciding if there is a problem
2. Measuring and assessing the scale of the problem with an Environmental Impact Assessment
3. Researching the options and best practice elsewhere.
4. Cost/benefit/risk analysis
5. Full report through committee
6. Public consultation if costly or controversial
7. Trial the solution
8. Tendering/VFM process for full scale solution.
9. Use local goods and services wherever possible.
10. Regular care and maintenance of all existing Green assets.

We believe most people in Brighton and Hove try to lead environmentally responsible lives and we would seek to support them in that. Most people are not over-consumers, just individuals trying to live their normal lives amidst many challenges, particularly in a Cost of Living Crisis.