Campaigns
What Is So Special About Somerset?
Think of Somerset and you immediately think of the beauty and variety of its countryside - from the ridge of the Mendip Hills, to the wildlife-rich levels & moors, our heritage of orchards and cider making, the rocky shores of the Bristol Channel and the rolling hills and pretty villages of the Blackdowns & Quantocks.
Yet sadly Somerset, like so much of our countryside, is something we can no longer take for granted. Somerset has a strong tradition of agriculture and industry which must be made more sustainable and which must exist alongside the ever-growing need for new homes, energy generation, new infrastructure and transport improvements.
On 1 December 2014, the Government set out the biggest road-building programme since the 1970s. Help us to campaign to stop this and push for funding for sustainable travel, public transport and safer walking and cycle routes.
Many of Somerset's main roads are congested and our rural roads are busier and more dangerous than ever. The answer is not to build more roads and tarmac over yet more of our countryside. Society and transport planners need to look for appropriate alternatives.
It’s almost impossible to consider modern life without electricity. With more people wanting more electricity, the subjects of how we generate it and how to use it more wisely was never more important than now.
Climate change is real. It is already taking its toll on the English countryside. And if it isn’t stopped, within a few decades it will have altered many of our most cherished landscapes forever.
Somerset's countryside has been under enormous pressure in recent years to accommodate large scale solar farms, spurred on by the high financial incentives being offered to landowners.
AD is a powerful and useful technology for dealing with organic waste matter. In principle, we support such renewable energy schemes, but we have serious concerns where large, industrial-scale AD plants are allowed to develop in the countryside due to their impact on local roads and infrastructure, rural communities and other rural businesses.
Quarrying is big business and it provides many jobs in Somerset and crucial supplies of stone and aggregate for the whole nation.
There are already 22,000 high voltage pylons covering 4,375 miles (7,000 km) of overhead lines across England and Wales. Most of these are in the countryside.
Wind turbines are tall moving structures which inevitably have an impact over very large areas.
Yeovil and the Yeovil area in South Somerset face unprecedented development pressures, particularly from new housing. We are campaigning for the creation of a Yeovil Green Belt to prevent further urban sprawl.
Use our interactive map of brownfield sites in Somerset which we believe should be prioritised for new housing or employment land - and tell us if you know of any other places that you think are a Waste of Space
