Ruth Arundell for Hythe and Dibden
Ruth has lived in Hythe for 15 years, but only joined the Green Party recently.

Full statement

She was disillusioned with mainstream parties, with the way important issues keep getting pushed down the agenda, with corruption and in-fighting and the idea that we can “win” by becoming the same as the “opposition”.
She said: “Climate change is the big catastrophe coming down the line, but it keeps slipping off the agenda because the mainstream political parties are all more concerned with helping big business to make more and more profit than they are with protecting the people who vote for them. Hythe and Dibden division is already very flood prone, and the more we build on our last remaining green spaces the more of a problem this will become, as run-off reaches areas where the water table is already very high.
“Right now our Government is busy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, imposing unitary
authorities in a desperate build to save money and splitting the Waterside from the rest of the
New Forest. ABP has long had designs on Dibden Bay and I fear it will become more difficult to fight this if we become part of a unitary authority with Southampton.
“I’m also very concerned about pollution and its impact on our health as well as on biodiversity.
The privatisation of our water industry has been a disaster and it’s been brilliant to see people
getting together to fight for re-nationalisation. The campaigners behind Dirty Business have done a great job bringing this to public attention, but there are also campaigns all over the country to monitor and report on the state of our water - I’ll be taking part in Earth Watch’s sampling this month and also getting more involved in the fight against pesticides and herbicides.
“In 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer found that glyphosate, the ingredient in Roundup and many other commonly sold weedkillers, was “probably carcinogenic”.
“Studies have shown it to cause harm to liver, kidney and skin cells, yet it is sold to gardeners and advertised on TV as a kind of “miracle cure” for weeds. Councils including Hampshire County Council and Hythe and Dibden Parish Council still use glysophate in public places. As an organic gardener for 15 years I know that dangerous chemicals are not needed to control weeds and will do all I can to end their use.”
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