I am a teacher and have worked for six years in a local secondary school.

Full statement

I grew up in Suffolk and have lived in Ipswich since 2021. I am pleased to be serving my community as a Mid Suffolk district councillor for a second term after the Green Party won by a landslide at the recent local elections.

My upbringing in the Suffolk countryside made me in awe of the natural world; hedgehogs, ponds alive with tadpoles and toads, and swarms of insects. In my twenties I lived in New Zealand for six years where I studied for my PhD in coastal ecology then worked as a researcher. Some of my colleagues spent their summer months in Antarctica, and their accounts of declining sea ice and impacted marine wildlife were eye opening. At home, we have all noticed striking changes in our seasons, extreme weather, water pollution and a decline in the abundance of local wildlife. The Green Party’s vision of a fair and sustainable economic system, where people can live comfortably within a thriving natural environment encouraged me into politics.

Unprecedented levels of heavy rain and saturated soils caused rainwater to flood homes and businesses across Suffolk. Framingham saw some of the worst impacts with water levels breaching the mere flooding over 70 homes. Debenham was also severely impacted with 50 homes internally flooded.

Whilst storm events are inevitable, the vulnerability of households to flooding is not. Severe spending cuts to the agencies and councils that maintain drains and ditches means this work has been scaled back. Not only must we ensure that water can move away from areas at risk; we must retain and slow the flow of water upstream using Natural Flood Management measures and identifying opportunities for new flood defences.

The recent release of beavers locally are a welcome contribution to both flood alleviation and environmental gain. Beavers are ecosystem engineers, creating wetlands that are valuable habitat for a range of species but also hold water and slow the flow.

The other issue concerning water is water quality. Shareholder owned water companies continue to discharge sewage into our rivers with near impunity. Last year Anglian water were fined £2.65 million for illegal sewage overflow, but paid £4.5 billion to shareholders and servicing debts instead of upgrading sewage treatment systems. At the same time, the government recently missed an opportunity mirror European legislation to help protect rivers from microplastic pollution.

Whilst water legislation needs to be strengthened, bringing our water companies back into public ownership is the only way to ensure they are truly accountable and that infrastructure investment is at the level needed. These improvements could be financed through a revived, publicly owned Green Investment Bank. We could also consider a staged approach, by purchasing some shares now then more later, that would return these companies to public ownership and reduce the immediate burden of cost. Only through government investment can we ensure services work for the common good and secure a healthy environment for future generations.