Coventry Conservatives and the Environment

David Cameron, and local council leaders like Ken Taylor, try to portray an image of the Conservatives as being an environmental party.

In fact, when you look at Conservative support for Trident, for nuclear power, for road building, or when key figures like John Redwood who want to put "economic competitivenes" first, when we see an opposition or skepticsm towards congestion charging, and their support for incineration of waste, the Conservatives are anything but a party of the environment.

Locally, if the Conservatives were serious about the environment:

- all new development in Coventry would include energy equipment on-site to provide 20% of energy needs. Instead, the council is considering millions of square feet of development (the Swanswell, development along Corporation Street, the Friargate development at the train station) without the 20% rule being required in planning applications and master plans.

- they wouldn’t be in favour of selling 3.2 acres of nature land in Cheylesmore (on the Stonehouse Estate, Toll Bar End) for housing.

- we would have like York, a 50% reduction in the cost of parking permits for small and less-polluting cars, and we would challenge the fact that 25% of car journeys are 2 miles or less.

- Coventry, as a former centre of car industry, would be sponsoring a shift towards sustainable modes of transport, for example, Ken Taylor could call a summit of the leading filling stations in Coventry and encourage them to provide biodiesel pumps ... or electric recharge points.

- if the Conservatives nationally were serious about David Cameron’s idea of “carbon audit offices” – which would act as a watchdog for specific year-by-year requirements for carbon cuts – we would have a Tory-controlled council putting the idea into action.

- we would have more than one farmer’s market (the second Thursday of each month, on Spon Street) in the city.