Energy

Campaign date: 08-01-2008

With average electricity consumption increasing at three per cent per year and a growing reliance on energy-intensive forms of transport such as cars and aviation, Kent’s energy situation is unsustainable, and there is an urgent need for major change. 

CPRE Kent’s energy campaigns focus on the following:

• Renewable energy. CPRE Kent is wholeheartedly in favour of a large increase in the contribution renewable resources make to our energy needs, but these should not disfigure the landscape in the name of its salvation. In north Kent, for instance, we have been enthusiastic supporters of the London Array offshore wind farm, but not of the greenfield onshore substation at Cleve Hill, Graveney. We have also strongly opposed the wind farm on Romney Marsh.
 
• Transport. Following huge growth in private car and air travel in recent decades, transport now accounts for 35% of our energy use. CPRE Kent advocates the radical improvement of public transport and the imposition of economic measures – such as road charging and tax on aviation fuel – that will reduce transport’s contribution to climate change and its impact on the landscape. We agree with the South East England Regional Assembly (Seera) that there should be a complete moratorium on airport growth in the South East.

• Increasing energy efficiency in housing. England’s housing stock is of very poor energy efficiency in comparison to that of continental Europe. House builders have shown little inclination to construct homes with the necessary standards of insulation, and the Government has failed to introduce legislation to make them. There is a desperate need for a building code with teeth that forces an end to the energy profligacy of new-build housing, and requires a large improvement in the energy efficiency of existing stock.

• Reducing domestic demand. Kent’s energy problems will not be solved solely by policy changes from Government: everyone in the county has the ability to reduce dramatically their energy consumption. By turning off lights as we leave a room, by switching off electrical appliances at the wall, by turning a central-heating thermostat down a few degrees or by using wood – a renewable energy source – for heating, we could, together, do a lot to redress our county’s energy imbalance.

CPRE national policy on energy

Attachments:

Campaign Issues

• Lower Thames Crossing
• Kent Climate Change Forum
• Transition Towns