IMPORTANT!! This is an archive of the work of Caroline Lucas, the Green MEP from 1999 to 2010.
The current Green MEP for the South East Region is Keith Taylor. Please visit his website to find out more or get in touch.

Your Green MEP in the South East

Caroline currently employs four part-time Regional Liaison Officers (RLOs) who live and work in the constituency. The RLOs concentrate on local and regional Green issues, promoting Caroline’s work and helping her better represent constituents across the South East.

For issues in :

 

PRESS RELEASES 

Caroline has worked hard to raise awareness of the issues which are important to people living in the South East. For press releases relating to her campaigns, please click here.

 

CURRENT CONSTITUENCY CAMPAIGNS

  • Kingsnorth Power Station

In winter 2007 the power company EON submitted plans to Medway Council to construct two coal fired generating units at Kingsnorth in Kent. Although there is a very real need to replace capacity, Caroline argues that this should be done via investment in renewables and decentralised energy generation. The planning application has been been agreed by the local planning authority, yet it has now been revelaed that EON do not intend to install even the most basic technology to reduce or control greenhouse gas emissions at the new plant.

Caroline will now be lodging a formal complaint with the European Commission about potential long term breaches of carbon capture and storage legislation, designed to make coal powered energy generation virtually CO2 free. She will be working with local campaigners and national environmental organisations to get the planning application overturned and has already contaccted EON directly to object to the scheme.

Read Caroline’s letter to EON and her planning objection here.

Caroline joined this year’s climate camp to take non violent direct action against EON’s proposals for a coal fired power station at Kingsnorth. She took a pro-active role in seeking to ensure a proportionate police response to the camp.

Read her letter to the European Commission about the right to protest.

Further information from climate camp.

 

  • Aviation and airport expansion in the South East

 

Since Caroline was first elected as an MEP, the British government have consulted widely about their plans to expand airport and aviation, nationally and in the South East. You can read her submissions to the government on the Transport and Aviation page. She has argued time and again that expanding aviation is incompatible with tackling climate change.

She has also listened to those residents that live near airports in the South East, including Gatwick, Farnborough, Southampton, Manston and Biggins Hill. Their concerns about increasing road traffic, noise, poor air quality and a failure to provide local jobs are also very important to Caroline. She has consistently opposed any new airport building or expansion in the region and you can read her letters to the planners and to the Department of Transport here.

Many South East residents are denied a good night’s sleep because of the noise of night time flights taking of from the region’s many airports. Caroline has campaigned for an end to night time flights in the European Parliament and in 2004 launched a Wriiten Declaration calling on the EU to take action to restrict flights between 11pm and 7am. Unfortunately, not enough MEPs backed the Written Declaration, so it was not adopted. The campaign Group HACAN Clear Skies issued information about which London and SE MEPs backed the Written Declaration, which you can read here.
 

  • Post Office Closures

 

Caroline knows that post offices are essential to the social fabric of many rural and urban communities in the South East region. Yet the government’s plans for closure and European wide legislation designed to open up the sector to commercial competition, ending its role as a public service, pose a serious threat to the future of many neighbourhood post offices. The Communication Workers Union estimates that up to 5000 rural post offices and 3000 urban post offices could be axed between now and 2011 - and Caroline is determined to do what she can to oppose these plans. As well as requesting a formal review of the decision to close post offices in Brighton she spoke at a recent public meeting in the city, alongside a representative of Post Offices Ltd. You can read more on the News page.

 In May 2008 she visited Reading Mail Centre to highlight its imminent closure and the centralisation of services. You can read her letter and the response from Royal Mail.

 

  • ‘Megashed Madness’

Plans for two gigantic food distribution centres are  currently threatening Hampshire open space: at Pyestock near Fleet a warehousing and distribution centre the size of over twenty football pitches, and at the Andover Airfield site, a development with a ground coverage of twelve football pitches and the height of four double-decker buses.

Caroline is supporting local campaigns against the megasheds in both cases, arguing that not only would these developments be badly sited, but that they are instrinsically unsustainable and incompatible with carbon neutral planning policy. Residents’ concerns about traffic noise and pollution, the impacts of 24 hour operation, and a lack of local jobs provided by the developments have also been backed by Caroline in her responses to the planning authorities.

Read Caroline’s letter of objection to the Andover Airfield development here and to the Pyestock plans here. She has also written to Tesco about the  planned megashed at Andover - read her letter and Tesco’s response.

 Image: Caroline with campaigners against the proposed Andover megashed

 

  • South Downs National Park

Caroline is a staunch supporter of the original proposals to include The Chalk Hills, The Western Weald, Ditchling and Lewes in the South Downs National Park. She has lobbied the Secretary of State and worked closely with local campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of the National Park in protecting the South East’s natural environment. Read her latest letter here.

 

  • Newhaven Incinerator

     

Residents of East Sussex have fought a long campaign to oppose the construction of an incinerator at Newhaven - and Caroline has supported them all the way. She has spoken at public meetings and met with members of DOVE, a group formed to fight the plans (see photo). As well as lodging objections with the local planning authority, asking for the application to be called in by the Secretary of State, and raising concerns with the European Commission, Caroline gave evidence at a Public Inquriy into the incinerator application in January 2008. She has also asked the Commision to look formally at the contract signed between the waste disposal authority and the incinerator’s developers, as she believes it could be illegal under European law. You can read all Caroline’s correspondence with the UK and European authorities here.

Caroline has also opposed applications to build or expand incinerators at Colnbrook in Slough, Guildford and Portsmouth.

 

  • Living in the South East

In 2007 Caroline submitted her response to the Regional Economic Strategy for the South East of England. Entitled Living in the South East, it outlined her vision for a greener, more equitable region, where well being, health, the environment and community cohesion are valued rather than just economic growth. She argues that the South East is overheating and that the government’s failure to sustainably regenerate the other UK regions is detrimental to the whole of the UK. Living in the South East builds on previous work Caroline has done on housing in the region and a report called Save the South East - Relocalise Britain.

 

PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS

  • Radley Lakes

In 2006, the energy company npower announced plans to dump pulverised fuel ash from Didcot A power station at Radley Lakes, an area well used and loved by local people. Outline planning permission was granted back in 1982 and revisited by Oxfordshire County Council, who supported it. Thrupp Lake, one of the Radley Lakes, is a haven for wildlife and there was a significant local campaign to oppose npower’s plans. In 2007 Caroline visited Radley Lakes and met with local residents to discuss ways she could support them.

Caroline made a formal objection to the planning authority and followed this up with a further letter opposing the scheme. She also asked the European Commission to intervene, as she has concerns about the permitted disposal of fly ash in this way.  In 2008 npower announced that there was no longer an immediate need to infill Thrupp lake and that the plans were on hold. Caroline has since written to npower again, welcoming the decision and urging them to look proactively at ways to reduce the ash produced at Didcot A in order to guarantee the long term protection of Radley Lakes.

In December 2008, nPower announced the results of a review and confirmed that ash from Didcot would not be used as infill at Radley Lakes. Moreover, the company have plans to effectively gift Thrupp Lake to the local community.Read Caroline’s response to the news and the letter from NPower.

  • Bodleian Library

Caroline wrote to every single Oxford City Councillor urging them to reject a planning application from Oxford University to build a new depository for the Bodleian Library on a flood plain. The site suffered severe flooding during the summer of 2007 and Caroline argued that the proposals were too risky from an environmental perspective and would not safeguard the valuable book collection. Councillors voted against the proposal and you can read Caroline’s letter here.

  • Dibden Bay, Southampton

Caroline’s team lent active support to the commuities fighting plans for a massive port at Dibden Bay on Southampton Water - a site with no less than six types of wildlife designation and included at the time within the proposed boundaries for the New Forest National Park. After a Public Inquiry, at which Caroline gave evidence, the plans were rejected, delighting local people.

  • SoCOMMS transport study

The South Coast Multi-Modal Study (SoCOMMS), commissioned by the Government Office for the South-East, released a transport package for the South Coast. After following the study and consultancy period closely, Caroline criticised the study for being too little too late - whilst it contained some Green measures, the study made no attempt to stave off a "nightmare" 22% increase in road traffic.