New Faces, New Ideas for Sevenoaks Town Council as Conservatives lose political control
Five new Liberal Democrat councillors for Sevenoaks Town Council will bring new ideas to its work over the next four years....
TC
5 May 2019
Wera Hobhouse MP urges government to incentivise solar power
29 Feb 2024
Europe - the Hello Suffolk campaign
On Monday 6 May(Bank holiday Monday) we launch our "Hello Suffolk!" campaign. Please join Jules Ewart and other campaigners at one of our local Pop-Up events organised specifically for YOU:
5 May 2019
They don't have a clue
The Government has dragged the country towards a disaster. While the Tories push for a deal just to avoid a party split, local plans and priorities in Wiltshire are being distorted to favour a Brexit that nobody wants.
PJ
5 May 2019
Woking Lib Dems win
Local Liberal Democrats cemented their strong position on Woking Council at Thursday's elections. The Liberal Democrats held all of their seats and made a gain to deprive Conservatives of control of the Council.
CAMB
5 May 2019
Two Liberal Democrat candidates elected in Stamford on South Kesteven District Council
Along with many other successes across the country, two Liberal Democrat candidates were successfully elected in Stamford to serve on South Kesteve District Council in the recent local elections.
5 May 2019
Mynott's Musings: The 2019 Election Results
What an incredible night for the Liberal Democrats! Our five wins here (out of 11 fought) pushed the country's Lib Dem win total over the 700 seats mark - not a bad result for a party that was being written off in recent years! I just thought I'd comment on a couple of interesting things which emerge from a closer look at the results across Brentwood. The Brentwood Council website is stating that the Conservatives got 42% of the overall vote whereas we got 41%. However these figures actually involve rounding-off fractional percentages. By my calculations the overall number of unspoiled votes cast in Brentwood was 16,447. Of that total we gained 40.92%, whereas the Tories gained 41.56% - a wafer thin 0.64% gap. This is also a massive leap forward from last year, when the Tories got 45% of the vote and we only got 34.5%. Furthermore in terms of the actual totals, the Tories picked up 6836 votes this year, but the Lib Dems were right behind them, on 6731. In other words we were only 105 votes short of their to
4 May 2019
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath and spokesperson for Energy Security and Net Zero, called on the government to provide incentives for energy providers to develop solar power in the UK.
Mrs Hobhouse slammed the government for falling behind on meeting the UK’s renewable targets for solar energy capacity. The government plans to deploy 70 GW of solar power across the country by 2035. However, as of 2022, the UK had only installed 14.3 GW of solar pv.
Following a visit to a rooftop solar system installed by Bath & West Community Energy (BWCE) at Beechen Cliff School last year, Wera Hobhouse is keen to encourage the development of similar solar projects across Bath. The solar system is predicted to significantly cut the school’s fuel costs and reduce their carbon emissions by 52 tonnes a year.
In the House of Commons on the 27th February, the Bath MP noted that the UK is lagging behind the rest of the world in renewable energy investment, she urged the government to offer incentives to energy providers to improve solar capacity.
However, Andrew Bowie, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Energy Security and Net Zero, ignored Hobhouse’s proposals, failing to describe the ways in which the government could incentivise solar energy. Instead, Bowie said that the government’s Solar Taskforce would publish recommendations for solar power and reiterated the government’s target to deploy 70 GW by 2035.
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath and spokesperson for Energy Security and Net Zero, commented:
“The Conservatives are falling dangerously behind on meeting our targets for renewable energy production. It is no good the government setting an ambitious 70 GW solar target if they are nowhere near reaching it.
“It is clear that they have no plan to get us back on track to reach Net Zero. Evidently, they are more than happy to dismiss perfectly good proposals like incentivising solar power. That is why I am so proud that Bath is home to many community energy projects like the solar system at Beechen Cliff School, so that we can lead the way in renewables.”
“It is not just our climate targets harmed by the Conservatives’ delay. Families in Bath and across the country are struggling to pay soaring energy bills which investment in renewables could curb. That is why we Liberal Democrats would build significantly more renewable energy, aiming to generate 80% of our electricity from renewables by 2030.”
Peter Capener, Managing Director of Bath & West Community Energy said:
“Our work with schools is really demonstrating the value of community energy in both addressing the climate crisis and reducing fuel bills. Rooftop solar installed last year has already saved local schools a combined total of £134,209 and has reduced carbon emissions by 224.3 tonnes, which is equivalent to 12,173 journeys from Bath to Edinburgh by train!”
