The Devon and Cornwall peninsula went Conservative under David Cameron’s Vote Blue Go Green mantra. Despite a record of national achievements, which have propelled the UK up the global environmental standings, the electorate do not think we have delivered.
Conservatives should not only continue to champion green economic growth along some of the finest coasts in the world, but most importantly point out and promote our successes to win back voters and flex our record of delivery.
And now more than ever we need to boost our energy security as we look forward to an uncertain international future. But, this still needs to be balanced against the need to produce our own food.
For me this is where Devon and Cornwall’s ability to generate green energy really comes into its own. We are home to more sun, wind, rain and tide than most parts of the UK.
We should also be rapidly deploying more offshore wind in the Celtic Sea. The Conservatives’ legacy of Contracts for Difference shows how private finance can drive forward offshore wind. But we now need to accelerate this, further cementing Devon and Cornwall as the home of green energy, creating new, skilled jobs for local people.
Previous Conservative governments significantly boosted our renewable industry but they also did more to protect and enhance our natural environment than any other – but our communication of this was woeful, leaving people believing our beautiful beaches are full of sewage, when many are among the cleanest in the world.
The Conservatives rightly spotlighted the decades old issue of water pollution by rapidly increasing storm overflow monitoring. This enabled us to understand the problem so we could set about fixing it. But instead of getting credit for this, Conservatives have been punished as if we created this long term problem.
This also means standing up for our rural communities. Promoting environmental policies that deliver a tangible benefit to our community, without costing individual households the earth. It is vital that rurality is factored in if we are to tackle long term climate change .
Far too many policies already from this new Labour government fail to have even a basic grasp of rural Britain, our way of life, or how we manage our environment sustainably. We need rurality to be at the heart of any environmental policy out here in Devon and Cornwall and we need it to be deliverable within those confines.
Locally we need to find ways to experience the green economic growth Devon and Cornwall has the potential to achieve. In our rural hinterlands to do that, we need to recognise the constraints of being home to a mostly retired workforce, many of whom embrace a NIMBYISM that prioritises our visual environment above all.
The environment is all of ours. We need a rural and coastal strategy, beyond what tiny local councils can deliver, but it is unlikely to be conceived purely in Westminster, particularly by a DEFRA front bench who all come from cities!
Rural Britain naturally conserves its environment, it is naturally conservative, and will vote Conservative again if we can deliver policies that create green growth, reflect the needs of rural communities, and hand the environment to the next generation in a better state than we inherited it from the last.
Views expressed in this blog are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Conservative Environment Network. If you are a CEN supporter, councillor, or parliamentarian and would like to write for the CEN blog, please email your idea to info@cen.uk.com
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