Stourbridge Lib Dem putting climate change at the top of the agenda

STOURBRIDGE'S general election candidate for the Liberal Democrats is urging all politicians to put climate change at the top of their agenda.

Chris Bramall, who is lining up for his eighth bid to win a parliamentary seat, believes whichever political party is running the country after polling day on July 4 should take action to tackle global warming.

Events like the pandemic and war in Ukraine and Gaza may have distracted political attention from the issue of climate change and the former teacher and solicitor is keen to return the subject to the debate.

Mr Bramall said: “For Stourbridge it has to be the same as for every other place in the country and every other country in the world, it has to be fighting climate change.

“The world fighting climate change means governments fighting climate change.

“The future of our children, grandchildren and the whole human race depends on the world as a whole fighting climate change.”

Although Mr Bramall wants a global battle to save the planet he says UK politicians can take action to help on a local level.

He said: “We can say to developers you must have a certain number of solar panels on housing or you won’t get permission, you must have certain numbers of trees and so on.”

He is also keen to protect greenbelt land and believes Dudley has more than enough already developed land to build on.

He said: “Dudley is almost unparalleled with space left over from declining industry, you have got to push for using brownfield sites.

“If you don’t protect the greenbelt it means expanding the conurbation and more money into roads and people driving here, there and everywhere.

“Where you have shops being redeveloped you say you must have a floor of housing over the top.”

The experienced campaigner, who is an ardent supporter of high speed rail and describes Brexit as a ‘disaster’, has a clear vision for what a fairer society would look like.

He said: “The very wealthy paying more in taxation in order to keep public services going, particularly for the very poor.

“Any government that is not going to look at that is not looking after the people.

“You keep tax low if you can but at the moment public services are in a terrible state.”

“Do we really want to live in a society where you have billionaires coexisting with people who are starving and having to go to food banks?”

Despite being in his 80’s the veteran politician, who served as a local councillor for nine years, is not ready to stop yet.

He said: “I love knocking on doors, I love talking and listening to people whether I’m standing or not standing.

“There is a certain amount of scepticism about politicians – scepticism is overdone, they are not as bad as all that on the whole.”