Hi, MATT KENT here, your Lewes Bridge By-Election Candidate. Below is what I believe in.....

...PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT (Where do we start?)

As a local architect I, (like many!) am deeply dismayed by recent planning decisions that have been taken for Lewes by the District Council, often with strong opposition from the Lewes Town Council Planning Committee.

With supermarket expansions and unaffordable housing being approved on flood plains, the District Council needs to be held to account for its
short-term, poorly considered decisions.

In recent years I have helped develop a masterplan design for North Street and a sustainable community alternative for Pinwell Road (Harveys Depot). I have a passion for the built environment and, working with residents and local industry, will champion better design in Lewes.

...SAFER STREETS FOR ALL (We're still waiting!)

Through my extensive 'Slow Down South Street' petition to East Sussex County Council in 2008, I managed to secure the inclusion of South Street into the 20mph Central Zone in early 2009. Even today, I continue to lobby East Sussex Council Council to introduce and enforce this speed limit within Lewes.

...GREEN JOBS FOR LEWES!

During 2008 I submitted a widely supported petition to Lewes District
Council to introduce a roadside green/organic waste collection, a cardboard and lower grade plastics collection, to be phased in over three years. The petition fell on deaf ears.

I am concerned that, as there is now a need to feed the incinerator in
Newhaven and that landfill in the SouthEast will be full by 2014, Lewes
District Council will never improve its recycling services. Services such
as these also need to be protected now that council spending cuts are being imposed by a tory/libdem central government.

THANKS for even getting this far. Bye for now - Matt