Protecting Mid Bedfordshire’s countryside...
We are fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of the country in Mid Bedfordshire. I will continue working to ensure that our countryside has the protections it needs, by campaigning to expand the Chilterns National Landscape and the Forest of Marston Vale to cover more of Mid Bedfordshire; giving vital new powers to protect and enhance our countryside.
Flooding is a major concern in our constituency, with decades of poorly planned developments leaving residents in places like Maulden and Clophill vulnerable. I will continue to work to strengthen protections in law against flooding, including a ban on new developments on functional floodplains. I will campaign to secure the Bedford to Milton Keynes Waterway Park, which will help to take water away at peak times, and to secure an extension of the Clophill Lakes Nature Reserve across the Flit Valley.
Overloaded water and sewage infrastructure puts local families and our environment at risk. I will continue to work to ensure that development cannot occur if there isn’t sufficient local water and sewage capacity to cope with it.
Having already secured a U-turn from Government that means houses built in new towns like Tempsford will count towards housing targets, reducing the number of houses that need to be built across Mid Bedfordshire, I will continue to fight against developments that are plucked straight from a developer’s catalogue and onto our countryside, working to ensure that we protect the historic character of our towns and villages. Any development that we do need should be well-designed, beautiful and, as far as possible, within existing settlements.
Our farmers are custodians of our countryside and grow the food we need at a time of global instability. I will continue to campaign against the Government’s Family Farm Tax and support the highest standards of animal welfare, and ensure we have a thriving farming community.
