General Election 2010 - Local Party Manifesto
Expand the Dilke
The Dilke hospital and surroundings should be expanded considerably. What a wonderful place to find Health. Rather than fighting our way into Gloucester, there should be buses bringing patients out into the Forest.
A40/A48/M5
The most efficient and safest route for freight to access South Wales from the East and the North is via the M50 or the M48/M4 Severn bridges. The reason that unnecessary traffic clogs and crashes on the A48 and the A40 is because too many drivers are looking to avoid the tolls on the Bridges. Both-way tolls have got to be introduced and drivers have got to be encouraged to use the safe, sensible and most fuel-efficient routes.
Green Thumb
It is impossible to provide on demand public transport in a rural districts like the Forest of Dean. So we must utilise the spare capacity of cars, often 80% empty. In brief, we must become a district of hitch-hikers, sharing public and private cars.
Lagoon
The Severn Barrage debate will run for ever but we need renewable energy now. And we can start Lagoons now - they work on the same tidal harnessing idea as the Barrage but are quicker to build, cheaper and more flexible.
Green Engineering Hub
The Forest was at the Forefront of the Industrial Revolution, and we have the skills and ingenuity to invent our way out of the problems that Revolution has caused. With a long history of manufacturing, a skilled workforce and empty commercial space, the Forest should be attracting the new industries and companies that are designing and making the systems and components for energy saving, renewable technologies. Why are so many of our highly skilled workforce having to commute out? They should be working here.
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