Dorset Council should directly provide genuinely affordable housing, especially for rent, and suitable for young people. We would use Council land, build new Council houses, and buy up and convert suitable existing housing. We would pay for this using the £15m the Council expects to receive from capital receipts each year borrowing, and funding interest from rents.
We will seek to use the planning system to deliver the right houses in the right places and at the right prices.
What Dorset's Green councillors have done
Played our part in creating a cross party consensus that we need Council housing
Consistently challenged attempts to avoid providing affordable housing in new developments
Supported the building of affordable flats and houses at Planning Committees
2) Better transport
What we will do
Public transport is inadequate throughout our county, and has all but disappeared from much of rural Dorset. We would work with commercial operators and directly provide bus services.
We would connect public transport services together. We would pay for this by borrowing to invest in new green buses, using our existing school transport service and securing higher revenues from increased use of the services.
New investment should focus on making walking and cycling easier and safer. It should be much easier to have 20mph limits.
What Dorset's Green councillors have done
Removed the ban on A and B roads in Council’s old 20mph policy
Continually supported adequate walkways and cycleways, and Electric Vehicle charging points in new developments
After commissioning a speed survey, and with the help of a local Labour Weymouth Town Councillor, succeeded in getting a Speed Indicator device (SID) installed on the busy A354 trunk road
Defended existing bus services.
3) More action on climate and ecology
What we will do
We will press government to allow our planners to be much more positive about renewable energy proposals, requiring solar panels on all suitable roofs and allowing wind farms in the Area Of Natural Beauty unless there are exceptional reasons against. We’ll press to make it easier to make listed buildings sustainable. And we’ll support offshore wind farms.
We’ll do more to prepare for the climate change that is already unfolding, and will protect and improve our natural environment and wildlife.
What Dorset's Green councillors have done
Following Green pressure, climate change is a Corporate Plan priority for Dorset Council, has a £10m budget and a Corporate Director.
Persistent pressure has led to the two further pillars of climate adaptation and ecology being added and similarly embedded in the work of the whole Council.
We have consistently pressed for more ambitious climate change targets for Dorset.
A Green councillor's participation in planning committees has helped secure, with the help of our allies on those committees, the acceptance of a number of large controversial solar energy schemes.
Our participation on planning committees, continually asking why developers had not incorporated green features in proposals, led to the Council proposing a checklist all applicants are now asked to consider including in their applications.
Pressed for more creative approach to environmental improvements in listed buildings.
Played a prominent role in persuading the Council not to accept plans to build a waste incinerator on Portland. (This is currently subject to appeal.)
Promoted a successful Full Council motion on separating sewage and surface water drainage systems
Persuaded Dorset Council to agree to reopen a path along a half-kilometre stretch of the coast in Weymouth previously blocked by landslips.
4) Better support for children and young people
What we will do
We will work with partners to raise standards in all schools in Dorset. We will aim to restore the network of youth services and youth clubs.
What Dorset's Green councillors have done
Highlighted the level of exclusions in schools serving our most deprived areas.
Councillor Clare Sutton has repeatedly pressed for the restoration of funding for Youth Clubs, following swingeing cuts made by the previous Dorset County Council. Working primarily with an Independent Councillor, she has played a key role in the creation of a £100,000 annual Youth Fund and a soon-to-be-launched £100,000 fund to assist Youth Clubs survive the cost-of-living crisis.
"Policies to improve the lives of people across Dorset"
Dorset Green Party Chair, Julian Jones, said "These are policies to improve the lives of people across Dorset."
Kate Hebditch, a Green Party candidate in Dorchester, said "Here, the right homes in the right places means not building 4,000 houses by the floodplain but we should aim to turn the former prison into affordable housing for local people.”
Clare Sutton, the Green candidate for Rodwell and Wyke in Weymouth, said "By helping overturn the slim Conservative majority on the council we expect to have a far greater influence and we look forward to putting these policies into practice".
