1. Standing up for our rural communities and farmers
 

As a villager myself, I fully understand the vital importance of preserving village lifeand amenities for future generations to come.

📷 I have long supported and championed local village campaigns like the Save the Hop Pole 🍻 - Limpley Stoke’s community pub campaign- where I helped secure £300,00 from central government to kickstart villagers' efforts to save a historic pub in the village.

📷 I am campaigning against the unacceptable and unwanted Solar Battery site in Whitley (the size of 300 shipping containers) and the recent proposal to build a whopping solar farm on One Tree Hill in Potterne Wick- where I stood shoulder to shoulder with concerned villagers at their protest just the other day. 

In a time when we have a war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 and issues with shipping around the world - we need to be prioritising growing crops on our farmland here - not desecrating it with humongous solar farms. Wiltshire has taken more than its fair share with 8 of the 10 largest in England. I have been clear. Enough is enough. Under the Liberal Democrat’s manifesto - all restrictions to protect our countryside from solar would be removed. I will always stand up for villagers and protect our countryside.

Farmers are the backbone of our community, producing the food we eat and preserving our precious countryside. 

This is exactly why we have made it a manifesto commitment to build on the £3.7 billion we invested annually in UK farming over the last Parliament, by increasing the budget by inflation. 

Farmers have told me at my many roundtables that I have held over the years that we need to be supporting farmers to grow more at home - which is why we have announced that we will set a target in law to enhance our food security and make sure that every extra penny we have will be spent on our grants progamme to boost domestic food production. 

I have heard directly from farmers in our area who are already benefiting from our Environmental Land Management schemes, which replaced the EU's bureaucratic common agricultural policy, and the latest figures show that nearly half of English farmers are now in our schemes. These are delivering business advice for over 19,000 farmers, over 1,200 direct drills for arable farms, 185 innovation projects, and more. In contrast the EU’s policy which saw 50 per cent of the funding go to the largest 10 per cent of land-owners.

As I have previously said, our farmers are the backbone of our community and do frankly a heroic job every day year in year out in keeping us fed and protecting the countryside for generations to come. I have a track record of listening, supporting and campaigning for our farmers and if you back me on Thursday - I can carry on being a strong voice for our area.