“The people of Dover have compassion and sympathy for those running away from violence, war and persecution. We wish there were safer ways for people to come to the UK to seek asylum. People shouldn’t have to make dangerous crossings in small boats. Every life is precious.

Not providing safe routes is a political choice, made by governments. We don’t welcome people travelling to our town to spread hate and protest about government policy. It causes local people and businesses to be fearful.

Dover is a fantastic place, with loads going on. We don’t want to be known as the place the far-right visit to show their racism. We want to be known for all the great things about our area: the lovely people, our iconic coastline, beautiful countryside, important historical sites and excellent local produce.”

The post Statement on protests planned in Dover by far-right groups appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

The change that they labelled ‘devolution’, proposes a single elected mayor for Kent & Medway, without overview & scrutiny. The change included an end to Kent’s district councils; to be replaced with huge Unitary Authorities (UA), with 3 or 4 UAs to cover all of Kent. 

Conservative leader of Kent County Council (KCC) Mr Gough, led his obedient Conservative councillors to vote on 9 January 2025 to end KCC, and to end our Kent district councils. Central government did not put Kent on the fast track for these sweeping changes, so our KCC election wasn’t cancelled. 

We Green Party councillors and campaigners across Kent, and East Kent especially, protested loudly on 9th January and at parliament on 30th January. Because we believe reorganisation that takes voices away from communities is change for the worse, not change for the better.

The proposal is for PLANNING to be taken from district councils, a.k.a. local planning authorities, to become the responsibility of a future ‘mayoral strategic authority’. The voting arrangements for a new Kent mayor, under discussion currently, favour lobby-laden parties with money.

Will this help the garden of England? Will it protect our vital food-growing fields and orchards?  We doubt it. We believe that reorganisation that favours bigger, more lobby-laden parties needs to be rethought. 

Dover, Thanet, Folkestone & Hythe, Canterbury and Ashford have over 720,000 residents, and are the half of Kent that is most hard hit by austerity and the cost of living crisis. We believe that if all 5 East Kent district councils are lumped into one council / Unitary Authority area, with little funding to restore council services and redress the awful impoverishment we see on our doorsteps, this may well be change for the worse.

We suggest the change wouldn’t be so bad if East Kent were to be two Unitary Authorities: Dover, Thanet and Canterbury in one, Folkestone, Hythe and Ashford, Swale East in the other. It would result in less loss of voter voice, less loss of democratic accountability.

The shape of reorganisation on the table in April 2025 needs a LOT of improvement to become change that redresses social injustice in East Kent. 

We Green Party KCC candidates and campaigners in Dover district are determined to speak up against a fake devolution, that makes things worse; to speak up for genuine devolution that empowers districts and communities in East Kent and pushes central government into restoring the funding that councils have lost over the 18 years since the banking crisis.  

The post The sweeping changes to Kent Councils: why 2025 KCC elections are so important appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

We need the right sort of housing and planning policies to resolve the housing crisis that blights the lives of many under 40s. We need new, genuinely-affordable homes for first time buyers and also social housing at fixed affordable rents on longterm tenancy agreements. But so many new developments within 2 miles of Deal, and in Dover district generally, do not offer this sort of housing, although we welcome the council housing that DDC has been able to roll out, for example 48 homes in Wingfield Place, Deal. 

Developments on what was ‘best and most versatile’ arable land (which may have been conveniently down-graded) got into the Local Plan, despite words in the National Planning Policy Framework NPPF urging their protection. But the climate emergency worldwide means that yields of staple crops that our UK could until now expect to import, will be in shorter supply. So it is essential that UK retains and improves its national food security, that it retains its food-growing fields and orchards, and protects the quality of soils and the productivity of the fields. 

Right Homes, right place, right price charter is the Green Party policy that balances out competing demands for land.

These policies to push the influential house building lobby (who like a return on investment of 20-30% in Kent) to build the right homes (meaning energy-saving, solar-roofed homes), in the right place (within close distance of services, work and schools so likely to be within settlements, and less likely to be greenfield), available at the right price (genuinely affordable for those suffering with our housing crisis).

On greenfield sites just outside the Deal/ Walmer parish boundaries, many new developments are springing up.

We need walk-able neighbourhoods with low-rise blocks of flats, and new low-carbon terraced houses so that we use land more effectively, for the benefit of people and planet. 

Two new sites in Sholden, in Mongeham, two sites either side of Cross Road, Mill Hill, in Ringwould & Kingsdown on the A258, on the southern edge of Walmer too.  

And objections (including ours) are pouring in on DDC planning portal about application number 25/00112 : 70 dwellings land NW of Kingsdown Rec ground on the edge of Kent Downs AONB.

The public protested against 50 houses when the draft Local Plan was consulted on. It is a development that will reduce wildlife on the edge of a popular but congested rural village with no pavements, on one of the few possible diversion routes used by emergency services when our A258 carrying traffic from Deal / Walmer to Dover /Whitfield is closed.

AND just 1 mile north of the Kingsdown development, along the Glen Rd / Liverpool Rd route (single lane with passing places), much used on the school run to primary school, the site of Ray’s Bottom (SAP 15 in Local Plan) was the subject of a presentation by developer GSE prior to seeking outline permission for another 75 dwelling development, on 25 February at Walmer Parish Hall. This is a site on a steep, food-growing field, adjacent to wildlife rich, chalk downland, Hawkshill Freedown.

What other problems crop up when developers go for greenfield first?  ‘Natural solutions to climate change in Kent’ a report adopted March 2021 by KCC, says we need to retain grassland, farmland, wetlands and woodlands because they capture carbon. Sacrificing natural carbon sequestration capacity without making sure the homes are built to zero carbon standards (with solar roofs, orientated to maximise natural heating, cooling and lighting, rainwater harvesting, high-spec insulation / double glazing, etc) exacerbates the climate crisis. It is thus contradictory to the advice of the national Climate Change committee and is not environmentally sustainable.

And of course we know we need to restore nature from its terribly nature-depleted state, so that nature can restore us. Only with the maximum retention of surrounding trees, inclusion of bird boxes, swift bricks, bat bricks, the planting (and maintaining for 3 year thereafter) of two native trees per dwelling, will the biodiversity net loss incurred by the sacrifice of a greenfield site be mitigated (whatever is said by rough and ready desktop calculations claiming BNG, biodiversity net gain). 

We need water companies to be statutory consultees, on the capacity of the sewer and freshwater pipes to cope with extra pressures as part of all applications for planning permission. Similarly, Kent Resilience Forum has contacted all parish councils to urge action, to protect Kent from extreme weather conditions we’ve started to experience, to reduce flood risks, by making hard surfaces permeable, to put in fire breaks between residential sites and farmland. But our DDC planning department and planning committee have not seemed too keen to stand up to developers on such issues. Alas! 

The post Overdevelopment makes East Kent less resilient, we demand better appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

Two lively question and answer sessions took place and issues that came up included increasing Britain’s food and energy security, shifting to a well-being economy, wealth redistribution through a wealth tax of 2% on billionaires, restoring public services, less lobby-laden central government, natural solutions to climate change that would protect the garden of England from floods, fires and droughts and the enjoyment of participating in local community campaigns. 

Christine Oliver, local parliamentary spokesperson for the Green Party, was the organiser of the events. A recently selected candidate in the upcoming 2025 Kent County Council elections for the Deal and Walmer area, Christine commented,  

“It was inspiring to hear Natalie Bennett speaking about hope in what can seem like very dark times. She reminded us that politics is the many people taking action to make their communities better and more resilient. It is community litter-picks and repair cafes, it is campaigning to keep our local bus routes and leisure centres. We can all help to make a fairer future.”

Books were, and still are, on sale thanks to The Deal Bookshop on Deal High Street. 

The post Natalie Bennett, Green Peer, cheers Dover and Deal with her book Change Everything  appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

• 4th Tuesday of the month
  Deal Pantry in Deal Welfare Club & Social Institute, Cowdray Square, Deal, CT14 9EU
  
• 2nd Saturday of the month at 10:30am
  Warm Welcome Drop-in Walmer Chapel, Station Road
  
• 2nd Saturday of the month at 11:15am
  Warm Welcome Drop-in St Saviours, The Strand Walmer
  
• And we’re also working on the Energy Saving info-point by the East Kent Climate Action team at Deal Library, until 1^st March 2025. 

Free professional services by Groundwork South Green Doctors can be contacted on 0800 233 5255 

And KentMoneyAdviceHub.com can be contacted on www.kentmoneyadvicehub.com phone 0800 8085622 

The people most in need of help are often the most difficult to reach, so we recommend that all of us keep an eye out for neighbours who are struggling and we hope they may be helped if these phone numbers are passed on to them.  

The information point to help people cut their energy bills was also available at a public meeting at Walmer Parish Hall before Christmas.  The meeting on Deal & Dover’s Winter Energy Crisis invited the public to discover how community-owned renewable energy project can cut costs of energy for homes and carehomes, schools and businesses.

Clearly if lots of roofs across our country can generate energy for the folks inside we cut down the need for big corporate oil and gas middlemen so that neither we as individuals nor our country is as dependent on international oil and gas prices we have no control over. This makes Britain more self-sufficient in energy terms, and we cut the burning of the fossil fuels which ramp up extreme weather events of  the climate crisis.

Saving money for ordinary folks in this way makes sense all round. This is why we have lobbied our MP to support the Sunshine Bill in Parliament (on 17^th January) to force property developers to put solar on the roofs of all new homes. 

The guest speakers at the public event were from Kent Community Energy, Michael Bax and Stephen Perfect, who along with Duane Poppe live locally in the district and are keen to reach the local organisations who could benefit from their expertise. KCE (Kent Community Energy) are a Community Benefit Society, and can provide 3 forms of help. 

1. They can give free quotes on the installations of roof-top solar arrays
2. They can also to team up with organisations who have larger roofs (170m2 or more), to lease the roof space for 20yrs, install their own KCE solar array and supply the organisation with cheap, reliable energy. No need in this case for an organisation to come up with thousands up-front to install solar themselves. Examples of suitable organisations include small businesses, carehomes, schools, etc. 
3. KCE also offer small grants to groups working to combat fuel poverty. 

Kent Community Energy can be contacted   by email info@kentcommunityenergy.org Or phone Duane the local KCE contact on  07418 077877.

The post Easing fuel poverty and promoting energy security in East Kent communities appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

The post DOVER Tower Hamlets Ward Election appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

25 campaigners of Green Parties from across Kent were alone in protested publicly outside the County Hall last Thursday, 5 hours before a Conservative majority voted to replace 

• 2 tiers of local govt (KCC & 12 elected district councils – struggling after 14yrs of cuts, that needed improvement) with 
• 2 tiers of local govt (mayoral team without scrutiny & 3 unitary councils, each covering approximately half a million or more people, that needs lots of improvement). 

We are told that Dover, Thanet, Folkestone and Hythe, Canterbury and Ashford, and District councils will be replaced by a single East Kent Unitary Authority which will have both the responsibilities of KCC (adult social care, transport, education, etc) and the current responsibilities of district councils (planning, housing, bins, electoral services, homelessness, economic development, community support, etc).   Vulnerable aging communities in Dover and Thanet districts could in future be ruled from Ashford or Canterbury depending on where the new East Kent Unitary is based. You may have seen our public letters in the local Press 8 /9 Jan in the Mercury and Dover Express Letters pages. 

We think there are many reasons to expect that the changes will deepen poverty levels in our vulnerable aging coastal communities instead of reducing them. It seems that Deal, Walmer, Dover, Ramsgate, Margate, Folkestone and Hythe towns and villages will find themselves far from the new Unitary Council decision-making in 3 years time. And will need to find new ways to stand up for themselves in front of the Unitary and Mayoral authorities and to call them to account.  

It is very likely that Conservative leader Roger Gough of what is now the dying KCC will agree within days with another Ministerial decision (a.k.a. diktat) of Angela Rayner (Housing, Communities & Local Gov. ) to cancel KCC 2025 elections so that his Conservative party shapes the new administrations in his parties interest. He has not been happy that in 2023 and 2024 Green and Independent groups were voted in to take control of Folkestone and Hythe, Ashford and Maidstone Councils and were part of Swale BC administration until Labour Minister Rayner overruled the planning policy of SwaleBC. Currently there are 53 district level Green councillors in Kent and 5 county level councillors, working their socks off. And many more Green Party people elected to Town and Parish Councils where councillors work on a voluntary basis. 

None of this change has had parliamentary process, all of it has happened by Ministerial decision in 3 weeks flat over the festive break without any details of funds to come to councils, a chalice offered by Labour Government in London to Kent Conservatives, convenient for both. The day after the vote at KCC, one councillor at DDC, C Woodgate, defected from majority group to the opposition Conservative group, presumably thinking that the decision on 9^th January did advantage the Conservative Party and if selected as a Conservative candidate before the elections to the new Unitary Councils it might benefit him. Basic councillor allowances at KCC are currently £16,000.  

Huge thanks will be due to local government officers who chose to keep vital services running while Kent is thrown in at the deep end to this sea of unpredictable change.  It is change which is so convenient for the property developers that the new Labour government seems unwilling to regulate or guide towards building the social housing that is cheap-to-rent or buy, cheap-to-heat and energy efficient, close to services that young families can walk or cycle to. We have a  Labour government that seems very unaware of how much communities in the garden of England need their green spaces and food-growing fields, woodland flood sponges, carbon-capturing, wildlife-harbouring grassland and wetlands.  

‘The whole process stinks of some banana regime; some would say both big parties have betrayed the people of East Kent, who have blatantly been excluded from this top-speed decision-making process’, said Cllr Sarah Waite-Gleave.  

Christine Oliver, Dover and Deal Green Party parliamentary spokesperson said, ‘We pledge to keep working to support our vulnerable coastal and rural communities in East Kent and to do our utmost to use all means possible to hold the new authorities to account. Please join us in this fight.’ 

The post No Fake Devolution – Green Party alone stand up for Democracy in Kent. appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

Two keen environmental campaigners, Jonathan and Emily Groves, and two volunteer organisers of the local Green Party, Christine Oliver and Sarah Waite-Gleave, worked hard over the festive period to get the new community campaign up and running by 3^rd Jan. It has been supported since December by EKCA, East Kent Climate Action. Concerns over deteriorating seawater quality at Deal Beach surfaced as local front page news in July 2024. The rating by the Environment Agency (EA) was ‘excellent’ in 2019; reduced to ‘good’ in 2021; reduced to ‘sufficient’ in 2023. A context which meant that when in 23 August the Environment Agency recorded a ‘spike’ of e.coli and sewage, the downgrading went down to ‘poor’ from sufficient, and advice was published that it was not advisable to swim.  This situation angered many in Deal and Walmer communities. It caused the cancellation of the Boxing Day dip.   

The new community campaign group, SOSDAW, has its own email address sos deal and walmer @ gmail . com (remove spaces), a mailing list of nearly 200 since its launch and a petition http://www.change.org/p/clean-deal-walmer-coastal-waters with the aim of focussing the campaign and pushing those with responsibility for the issue (Southern Water, EA, DEFRA, DDC and KCC) to clean up and re-grade fast by December 2025, instead of waiting until Southern Water have to report to EA in Spring 2027. The petition gained 1000+ signatures in the 5 days after the launch.  

SOSDAW want actions in East Kent to include:  

• An immediate and long-lasting increase in the frequency of seawater testing by both Southern Water and the regulator EA, with an increase in the number of sites where testing is done between Sandown Castle, North Deal and Boundary Road, Walmer / Kingsdown. 
• Surveys of, and speedy upgrading of, infrastructure such as Southern Water assets (pipes, holding tanks, settlement tanks, etc); Infrastructure upgrades to put an end to storm overflow releases (given that there is a Kent-wide call to be more resilient in the face of more frequent extreme downpours and surface flooding) ; complete separation of foul sewage and surface water everywhere in CT14 postal area, including connections to Golf Road WPS. 
• Any sewage leakages originating at DDC owned properties including Deal Pier to be thoroughly repaired and pipes replaced at speed in 2025. The in-depth investigation by Southern Water which aims to report to EA by May 2027, to provide a public interim report by Dec 2025, given we have key coastal events due to happen in Walmer in summer 2026. EA to work on a ‘Step Change’ process speedily and work with the local community to identify problems, resolve them and enable an upgrade in seawater bathing quality in 2025.  
• Increased forward planning so that water companies become statutory consultees on all industrial, tourism, and housing developments and are required to provide Local Planning Authorities with reports on how developments will impact capacity and will connect to existing waste / foul water infrastructure before planning applications are approved; a speedy end to illegal / accidental misconnections of new bathrooms to the storm water drainage systems. 

The petition contains a section on the background context relating to the water industry. The petition was informed by evidence given on 16 December 2024 to the DDC Overview and Scrutiny Cttee when 90 minutes were spent questioning Southern Water and Environment Agency representatives about pollution in coastal waters in the district.  

Private swimmers can decide for themselves whether to swim or not, whether to dismiss the EA rating, given our fast-flowing local currents. But organisers of seawater-based events (boxing day dip, rowing / sailing regattas) who need Public Liability Insurance are impacted when a reading of human faecal matter is recorded  and local seabathing quality is down-graded. As has happened steadily since 2019. 

Chair of the launch meeting, Green Party campaigner, Sarah Waite-Gleave said, “last night people were kind enough to thank us for getting organised fast. It was a lot of work over the Xmas weeks! Unfortunately the speakers we were expecting from Surfers against Sewage and Sewage Coalition (who did a parliamentary briefing on 9th Dec) couldn’t make it, so colleagues Emily Groves, Sam Brookfield and Mike Eddy had to step in at short notice, warm thanks go to them. The deputy leader of DDC, cllr Jamie Pout, cabinet member for environmental services and transport, turned up unexpectedly in the audience, and spoke during the Q&As which was very helpful from the point of view of public information. Those of us who are town councillors are also working with colleagues on Walmer and Deal Town Councils to get Southern Water to clean up our coastal waters.”

The public are asked to use the Environment Agency hotline to report any problems 0800 80 70 60 .     To support the campaign, residents can sign the petition www.change.org/p/clean-deal-walmer-coastal-waters and join future demonstrations to demand a clean up and re-grading of our coastal waters fast. The launch was front page news in the Mercury on 8^th January.   The new campaign group has an instagram account @sosdealandwalmer and is on Blue Sky too @sosdaw.bshy.social that readers can follow for updates on the next actions that will be taken. 

The post Green Party campaigners behind launch of new clean water campaign group SOSDAW  appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

The worsening water quality, related to faecal pollution, has happened despite assurances from Southern Water that they are taking action. And while Southern Water continue to pay large bonuses to executives.  BBC covered the story that Lawrence Gosden CEO of Southern Water got a £183,600 bonus in July 2024 although this water company has announced plans to increase household bills by 73% between now and 2029.  On 5^th Sept 2024 we wrote to Dover and Deal MP Mike Tapp asking him to attend a meeting in parliament on 10^th Sept organized by anti-sewage groups who want much more action from the new government on the water pollution issue and we urged other to write too. The link is on our facebook page.  

In early 2024, Green councillors on Walmer Town Council (Pete Findley, Sarah and Mike Eddy) persuaded their colleagues to approve a ‘Motion for the Ocean’ and consequently WTC sent strong requests to DEFRA, to KCC and to DDC to take urgent action to stop sewage spills on Kent coasts, to clean up waters,  stop fecal, plastic and chemical pollution and restore marine biodiversity. 

Back in Oct 2021, when she was a cllr on Deal Town Council, our parliamentary spokesperson Christine Oliver, initiated a resolution by Deal Town Council, “Deal Town Council condemns in the strongest possible terms the decision by the MP for Dover and Deal to vote in favour of allowing water companies to continue to discharge raw sewage into the sea and water courses at levels above EU regulation standard. 
View article: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/amp/perverse-in-the-extreme-256480/

Members of your local Green Party will continue to keep a close eye on the reports of the Environment Agency and to campaign for a clean up of coastal waters and rivers in East Kent, and support all local campaigners on this issue.  We were also part of the Save our Seas rally at Ramsgate with national campaigner Feargal Sharkey in February 2023. 

Christine Oliver, parliamentary spokesperson for the Green Party in Dover and Deal said: ‘It is not surprising that campaign groups will be demanding much tougher action on Tues 10^th Sept and again on Sat 26^th October when there will be a March for Clean Water in London. Raps on the knuckles from Ofwat will not solve the problem caused by the failed privatization of water treatment and supply.   

Sources of information:

• https://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/do-not-swim-warning-would-kill-our-town-309612/
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngjj733j7o
• https://inews.co.uk/news/labour-no-real-plan-fix-uk-rivers-3237514

The post Speaking up for cleaner seawater in Dover District appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.

Many of us Dovorians know what a welcoming venue the Old Endeavour is on the banks of the Dour and our quiz night was certainly a lot of fun. The Dover Pantry is a membership store or social shop that helps people struggling financially. It is located at the Charlton Centre, London Road, Dover. 

Keep an eye out for our next fundraiser! Join us so that our little team of activists can do more for Dover district. https://join.greenparty.org.uk

The post Raising funds for a great Dover cause  appeared first on Dover & Deal Green Party.