Guest election blog – Lib Dems by Rosie Pearson

I am a planning and environmental campaigner, co-founder of the Community Planning Alliance, founder of Essex Suffolk Norfolk Pylons action group, co-founder of the North Essex Farm Cluster and columnist with The Telegraph.

I do not have any strong party allegiances.  I’m interested in policies, not politics.

This is my review of, and my thoughts about, the environmental implications of the Liberal Democrat’s approach to energy as set out in their election manifesto.  Here are my highlights and lowlights.

Things I like:

• Meeting the UK’s commitment under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030 is a robust start.
• The manifesto positively supports accelerating the deployment of renewable power and delivering energy security. It aims to do so by supporting investment and innovation in tidal and wave power, by maintaining the ban on fracking, introducing a ban on new coal mines and by ending fossil fuel subsidies.  (However, see my concerns below about one element of this strategy.)
• Supporting the expansion of community and decentralised energy would be hugely popular and reduce the pressure to industrialise the countryside with large-scale solar and transmission infrastructure.
• It is encouraging to see that there will be a requirement for the National Infrastructure Commission to take fully into account the environmental implications of all national infrastructure decisions, even though in reality it has no decision-making powers. 
• The build-out of the grid will be supported by a strategic Land and Sea Use Framework.   This is much needed given huge and conflicting pressures on land uses, and pleasing to see it will extend to marine matters.    Investing in energy storage, including green hydrogen, pumped storage and battery capability.
• This is very specific and it is interesting that it is included in the manifesto: ‘Building more electricity interconnectors between the UK and other countries to guarantee security of supply’.  There already are lots of interconnectors.  The requirement to locate them carefully to avoid disruption to local communities and minimise environmental damage is noteworthy because it indicates a respect for the environment and communities.

Things I don’t like:

• The pledge to remove “the Conservatives’ unnecessary restrictions on new solar and wind power” is disappointing as that has come after much lobbying in recent years.   Wind power must have community consent, as currently, and solar should not be on best and most versatile arable land.   Blanket renewables at any cost can cause more harm than the benefits they bring.  It is disheartening not to see pledges for solar on all rooftops and car parks.
• The Liberal Democrats (like the Conservatives and Labour, to be fair) miss the point that there are ‘community benefits’ for those hosting infrastructure. Community benefits are extremely unpopular because it is, in fact, compensation that is needed.  Ideally transmission operators and other infrastructure providers must be obliged to have a discretionary compensation scheme that requires them to ensure that no-one is financially disadvantaged.
• It would be preferable to see reference to updating policies to ensure latest technological approaches to the ‘great grid upgrade’ are taken into account.  There’s a risk that pylons will remain the preferred choice, despite being environmentally damaging when alternatives exist.

Overall assessment:

The ratio of likes to dislikes above is favourable and the environment features very strongly in the energy section of the manifesto. 

Would I vote for these environmental policies?

The only Liberal Democrat energy policy that gives me pause is the one that seeks to allow wind power and solar power seemingly without restrictions.  Environmental, community and food security checks are essential and one would hope that in practice those would apply.

This is one of a series of opinion pieces on the political parties’ 2024 general election manifestos. They were commissioned by Wild Justice several months ago by approaching a wide variety of conservationists and environmentalists long before the date of the general election was known. Some people who originally agreed to write pieces found the date and short timescale impossible and had to back out. We did not know what they would write and their only brief was to pick one or two political parties’ election manifestos and tell us what they liked and didn’t like about their environmental policies. We didn’t tell people what to write and we haven’t edited what they wrote (except to squeeze things into a common format, to correct minor grammatical and spelling errors and typos). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Wild Justice.

If you think you could produce a review of one of the 2024 general election manifestos then we would need to receive it as soon as possible, but in any case before 26 June, in a similar format to that above, as a word file and with a .jpg or .png image of yourself, the author. Send any potential texts to admin@wildjustice.org.uk and we will look at them. We’ll let you know if we want to publish your piece and we may be able to pay you a small amount for it.