In the Bridport town council elections held on May 2nd 2019, all four Green candidates - Karen Hunt, Ros Kayes, Julian Jones and Kelvin Clayton - were elected, and furthermore they topped the polls! They join eleven Lib Dems, two Labour and one Conservative on the 18-strong council.
And in the election for Dorset Council, Kelvin Clayton becomes Bridport's first ever Green Party principal authority councillor. Following boundary changes, Bridport now returns three councillors to the 82-strong Dorset Council and Kelvin was elected along with Sarah Williams and Dave Bolwell of the Lib Dems to represent Bridport. The Green Party now has four Dorset Councillors - he joins Jon Orrell, Clare Sutton and Brian Heatley, all from Weymouth and pictured below along with Sara Harpley who was elected to Portland Town Council.
Above: Kelvin Clayton (Bridport) Jon Orrell (Melcombe Regis) Sara Harpley (Portland Town Council) Clare Sutton & Brian Heatley (Rodwell & Wyke).
Kelvin said "Thank you to the Bridport Greens for their hard work, and a massive thank you to the good citizens of Bridport for your support. I will not let you down!"
Overall, the Conservatives won 43 out of 82 seats in Dorset, the Lib Dems 29 seats, Greens 4, Independents 4 and Labour 2 so the Tories have a wafer thin majority.
All the results in Dorset can currently be found on the council webpage here: https://mapping.dorsetforyou.gov.uk/dorset-council-elections/2019/Results
Kelvin Clayton said: “I feel that it is important for me to be available to listen to the concerns of local residents, and hopefully this will prove to be a relaxed and inviting environment in which to do so."
Here is a pdf version of our tenth Bridport Green Group newsletter. Click it to open a digital version.
Here is a pdf version of our ninth Bridport Green Group newsletter. Click it to open a digital version.
Here is a pdf version of our eighth Bridport Green Group newsletter. Click it to open a digital version.
Read all about our candidates for Bridport Town Council and Dorset Council
Here is a pdf version of our seventh Bridport Green Group newsletter. Click it to open a digital version. Below the image is a bit more info about the amount we spend on housing benefit.
In the newsletter we claimed "Currently in West Dorset alone, we spend £27 million a year on housing benefit." This information was taken from a government spreadsheet. Click below to download this 7MB excel file.
In the UK as a whole we spend around £20 billion each year on housing benefit. Much of this goes into the hands of private landlords.
Here is a pdf version of our sixth Bridport Green Group newsletter. Click it to open a digital version. Below the image is an extended story on renewables in Dorset.
In the newsletter one of our articles covers renewable energy in Dorset. Here is an extended version with more information in italics.
Dorset residents spend over £400 million each year on household energy with fossil fuel companies the winners.
According to ofgen we spend £1200 per year on energy for the home. So with 345,000 houses in the Dorset area (including Bournemouth and Poole), that adds up to £414 million.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/infographic-bills-prices-and-profits
Currently, renewable energy produced within Dorset accounts for only 6% of the energy required to power our homes.*
The figure of 6% is from the Dorset Energy Partnership Annual Report for 2015-2016. The report details how 168 Gigawatt hours are generated in the form of heat (mainly from domestic woodstoves) and 511 Gigawatt hours per year are generated in the form of electricity (mainly ground-mounted solar farms). So the total renewable energy generation was 680 GWh per year for electricity and heat for homes.
Although this is a big improvement on the 1% we produced in 2011, it is still totally inadequate given the scale of the challenge of climate breakdown, and since the government is withdrawing support for solar power it looks like progress will be halted.
And of course this is only 5.5% of electricity and heat for our homes - this does not include the following:
- road transport fuels
- aviation fuel
(Transport accounts for 40% of our energy demand according to the Zero Carbon Britian report produced by the Centre for Alternative Technology)
- shipping fuels
- energy used abroad to manufacture things we used to make in this country.
So renewables are still only producing a tiny proportion of our total energy use.
Bridport Green Party Town Councillor Kelvin Clayton says, “The Conservatives have put a stop to onshore and offshore wind energy projects in Dorset (such as Navitus Bay) and prematurely removed subsidies for solar PV.
Kelvin says: "We’re missing a trick here! The Green Party wants to see more community owned renewable energy schemes in Dorset. These would retain tens of millions of pounds in the local economy at the same time as creating hundreds of skilled local jobs.
We know we have to phase out fossil fuels entirely by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic climate change so let’s do it now and then we all benefit.”
Here is a pdf version of our fifth Bridport Green Group newsletter. Right click on the image below and choose "Save Link As" (or similar) to download.
In the newsletter we promised more info on reducing plastic waste so ...
You can get a free refill when you are out and about thanks to the “Refill” campaign (run locally by “Litter Free Coast and Sea”) which promotes businesses who will happily refill your water bottle.
http://www.litterfreecoastandsea.co.uk/refill-dorset/
Locally, the following cafes and pubs have signed up:
- in East Street, Bridport, No 10 and Aroma cafes,
- and in Barrack Street, the Bearkat Bistro and the Green Yard Café
- in Burton Bradstock, The Three Horseshoes pub,
And of course many more places would oblige if asked!
- Never flush plastic down the loo!Only the 3 P’s go down the loo
- Many businesses could do more to consider how to reduce plastic packaging and as customers we can choose to for example buy our veg without plastic packaging - it’s easy in the green grocer! There are alternatives to straws, condiment sachets and polystyrene chip boxes.
- Sign the petition to bring back bottle deposits
Here is a pdf version of our fourth Bridport Green Group newsletter. Right click on the image below and choose "Save Link As" (or similar) to download.
Here is a pdf version (2.3 MB) of our third Bridport Green Group newsletter. Right click on the image below and choose "Save Link As" (or similar) to download.
Here is a pdf version (1.9 MB) of our second Bridport Green Group newsletter. Right click on the image below and choose "Save Link As" (or similar) to download.
Here is a pdf version of our first Bridport Green Group newsletter. Right click on the image below and choose "Save Link As" (or similar) to download.
Kelvin's twitter feed
