The Liberal Democrats have selected an environmental policy expert to be the first MP for the constituency of East Grinstead and Uckfield.
Benedict Dempsey, a former District Councillor, has been nominated by the party to contest the new seat at the next general election.
Ben, 44, grew up in Haywards Heath. He went to Oxford University and lived in London for ten years before moving back to Sussex 14 years ago to raise his family. He has a masters degree in sustainable development and a PhD in nature conservation from the University of Sussex. He was a Mid Sussex District Councillor from 2019 to 2023.
Ben has worked for humanitarian and nature conservation charities for over 15 years, lobbying ministers in Westminster as well as working abroad in countries including Haiti, Myanmar, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
As a District Councillor, Ben worked particularly on planning and the environment, securing improvements to nature recovery policy in Mid Sussex. He also successfully proposed a Council motion calling for refugees and asylum seekers to be treated with dignity and respect.
Ben said:
“People in East Grinstead, Uckfield and local villages are desperate for our politics to be better.
“We are losing the ability to discuss complex issues in a rational and reasonable way. I offer residents the chance to have an MP who listens and is respectful of different shades of opinion, even if we don’t always agree.
“I believe the values of tolerance, honesty and decency are shared by the vast majority in this country. The Liberal Democrats offer the best hope of that in this new constituency.
“The new East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency is made up from parts of four others – Mid Sussex, Wealden, Lewes and Horsham. In all four of those, the Lib Dems came second to the Conservatives last time.
“Labour has already acknowledged it can’t win here, labelling it a ‘non-battleground’ seat.
“The Lib Dems are ready to take on the Conservatives. If I am elected, I will represent the people of East Grinstead and Uckfield with the outward-looking, tolerant, liberal-minded politics that has been so sorely lacking in recent years.
“We must repair the damage done by this government, tackle the cost of living crisis, stop sewage being poured into our rivers, and restore political standards and the rule of law. The government’s incompetent mishandling of the pandemic and Brexit has cost us billions.
“I have lived in Sussex for most of my life, and want to champion the issues that matter to local people.
“In particular, I will campaign to change the government’s planning system – putting more power in the hands of communities and taking it away from the big developers. That is the only way to tackle our housing crisis, by building the kind of green, affordable homes people actually need, not just the ones that make the most profit for large corporations.
“I look forward to listening and talking to people in East Grinstead and Uckfield, and asking them to put their trust in me as their next MP.”
The Liberal Democrats have selected an environmental policy expert to be the first MP for the constituency of East Grinstead and Uckfield.
Benedict Dempsey, a former District Councillor, has been nominated by the party to contest the new seat at the next general election.
Ben, 44, grew up in Haywards Heath. He went to Oxford University and lived in London for ten years before moving back to Sussex 14 years ago to raise his family. He has a masters degree in sustainable development and a PhD in nature conservation from the University of Sussex. He was a Mid Sussex District Councillor from 2019 to 2023.
Ben has worked for humanitarian and nature conservation charities for over 15 years, lobbying ministers in Westminster as well as working abroad in countries including Haiti, Myanmar, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
As a District Councillor, Ben worked particularly on planning and the environment, securing improvements to nature recovery policy in Mid Sussex. He also successfully proposed a Council motion calling for refugees and asylum seekers to be treated with dignity and respect.
Ben said:
“People in East Grinstead, Uckfield and local villages are desperate for our politics to be better.
“We are losing the ability to discuss complex issues in a rational and reasonable way. I offer residents the chance to have an MP who listens and is respectful of different shades of opinion, even if we don’t always agree.
“I believe the values of tolerance, honesty and decency are shared by the vast majority in this country. The Liberal Democrats offer the best hope of that in this new constituency.
“The new East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency is made up from parts of four others – Mid Sussex, Wealden, Lewes and Horsham. In all four of those, the Lib Dems came second to the Conservatives last time.
“Labour has already acknowledged it can’t win here, labelling it a ‘non-battleground’ seat.
“The Lib Dems are ready to take on the Conservatives. If I am elected, I will represent the people of East Grinstead and Uckfield with the outward-looking, tolerant, liberal-minded politics that has been so sorely lacking in recent years.
“We must repair the damage done by this government, tackle the cost of living crisis, stop sewage being poured into our rivers, and restore political standards and the rule of law. The government’s incompetent mishandling of the pandemic and Brexit has cost us billions.
“I have lived in Sussex for most of my life, and want to champion the issues that matter to local people.
“In particular, I will campaign to change the government’s planning system – putting more power in the hands of communities and taking it away from the big developers. That is the only way to tackle our housing crisis, by building the kind of green, affordable homes people actually need, not just the ones that make the most profit for large corporations.
“I look forward to listening and talking to people in East Grinstead and Uckfield, and asking them to put their trust in me as their next MP.”
A potential development of 1,100 houses on green fields at Hamsey, near Lewes, is a prime example that shows the planning system isn’t working, the Liberal Democrat candidate for East Grinstead and Uckfield has said.
Benedict Dempsey, Lib Dem candidate for the parliamentary constituency that contains Hamsey, said developments of this kind will not help solve the country’s housing crisis. Instead, he said, we should empower councils to build homes that put ‘people before profit’.
He said the Hamsey site should be rejected by Lewes District Council in its Local Plan. In the longer term, he said, the planning system needs major reform to allow councils to build new social and affordable housing with the necessary infrastructure to support them.
The site (labelled ‘19HY Land North of Cooksbridge’) has been judged ‘potentially suitable’ for development in Lewes District Council’s Land Availability Assessment (LAA). The council is currently asking for public feedback on options for its Local Plan, with its consultation closing on 19th February.
Ben Dempsey said: “We are in a housing crisis, and we desperately need more low cost and social housing for people to live in.
“But proposals like this are not the answer. We can’t address our housing crisis by putting over a thousand houses into a tiny rural community.
“Hamsey has no services to support a development of that size and has very limited public transport. The area already suffers from congestion at peak times. It encompasses productive agricultural land and it is an area of environmental importance bordering the South Downs National Park.
“Instead of absurd proposals like this, local authorities should be supported to build a new generation of environmentally sustainable, affordable and social housing. But currently, their hands are tied by the national planning system.
“The only people that this kind of development benefits are the developers who stand to make a profit. Local authorities are being put in an impossible position by the national planning system that forces them to meet housing targets and is stacked in developers’ favour.
“In the short term, Lewes District Council should reject development of this site in its Local Plan.
“In the longer term, we need major reform to the national planning system, so that sites like this are not considered suitable in the future. Instead, councils should be enabled to deliver housing that puts people before profit.
“For example, local authorities should be given the power to build affordable and social housing themselves, and allowed to borrow to fund them if appropriate. We should introduce binding targets for social and affordable housing, set by local authorities, and the Land Compensation Act should be reformed so that councils can buy land based on current value rather than ‘hope value’ associated with a planning application.
“I call on other parliamentary candidates for East Grinstead and Uckfield to oppose the development at Hamsey, and support these reforms of a planning system that is currently not working for our communities.”
I’m sure everyone was shocked to hear today’s news that raw sewage spills into England’s rivers and seas doubled in 2023.
Here are some of the places in our area where spills took place:
#Barcombe: 91 spills totalling 995 hours
#Cooksbridge: 37 spills totalling 286 hours
#Newick: 62 spills totalling 627 hours
#ScaynesHill: 61 spills totalling 665 hours
#Maresfield: 50 spills totalling 780 hours
#Buxted: 99 spills totalling 1682 hours
#Uckfield: 20 spills totalling 169 hours
#Danehill: 90 spills totalling 1400 hours
#HorstedKeynes: 85 spills totalling 1274 hours
#Ardingly: 36 spills totalling 366 hours
#Balcombe: 98 spills totalling 1246 hours
#WestHoathly: 43 spills totalling 398 hours
#ForestRow: 57 spills totalling 796 hours
#CrawleyDown: 49 spills totalling 364 hours
#Copthorne: 47 spills totalling 659 hours
#Nutley: 49 spills totalling 490 hours
This is a revolting state of affairs that has continued for far too long - polluting our wonderful rivers including the Ouse and the Uck.
Liberal Democrats would replace Ofwat with a new regulator with stronger powers to hold water companies to account.
We would also ban water executives from taking bonuses if their companies dump sewage into our rivers.
Source: https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/21e15f12-0df8-4bfc-b763-45226c16a8ac
We need to end the false logic that tackling our affordable housing crisis means giving in to developers. There is another way – we have to reform the national planning system, empowering local authorities to deliver affordable, social and council houses alongside the infrastructure that communities need.
This is the first in a series of blog articles I’m planning to write, to give people in East Grinstead and Uckfield a few more details about what I think on different issues.
I’m writing about housing and planning first, because it’s the issue that has come up most often with the people I’ve spoken to. Housing and planning also cuts across a huge range of other issues – where and how we build houses affects roads, sewerage, health, education, and the environment among many other things.
An affordable housing crisis
First things first: we are in an affordable housing crisis. More people than ever are struggling to afford a place to live, with over a million households waiting for social homes. House prices, relative to earnings, have more than doubled since the 1970s, and in England now stand at more than eight times average income. Meanwhile, rent inflation is at record highs, with average rent in England now more than £1,200.
As a result, many people face crippling rental costs, cannot afford to buy a home, or simply have nowhere to live at all. This situation is completely unacceptable.
Development pressure
At the same time, towns and villages across Sussex are under enormous pressure from new developments.
The national planning system is stacked in favour of developer corporations. Councils are required to deliver housing numbers by central government, and forced to accept a certain level of development. In East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency, Mid Sussex, Wealden and Lewes District Councils are struggling to meet those demands. Knowing this, developers attempt to get permission for completely unsuitable proposals, like those at Hamsey.
As a result, despite Councils’ best efforts, houses are frequently being built on greenfield sites, often at unaffordable prices and without the infrastructure to support them properly. Services like healthcare, water, sewerage and roads are being put under strain.
Breaking the false logic
The combination of the housing crisis and development pressure results in a situation where most people agree we need more housing, but most people don’t want it near where they live.
How, then, do we address this problem?
I think we have become trapped in a false logic. The false logic says that the only way to provide the houses people need is to get private developers to build more.
That causes a problem. Naturally, private developers will usually want to build the kind of houses that make them the most profit. They must make contributions to local infrastructure, but they are not usually responsible for actually delivering it.
As a result, a lot of new housing is not affordable for the local community, is not in the right places, and does not come with the necessary infrastructure. Under these circumstances, it’s understandable that local people are often resistant to new houses in their communities.
Another way
But there is another way to solve the housing crisis, by reforming the planning system.
What we need is much more social and affordable housing, not simply more houses that are out of most people’s reach. We need those houses to be properly planned, with necessary services and infrastructure. They also need to be planned in line with local nature recovery strategies.
So instead of relying only on private developers to deliver our housing, we have to restore the role of local councils and housing associations.
Here are some ways we can do that:
- We should empower councils to build the next generation of sustainable, affordable, council and social housing.
- That means giving councils the legal and financial powers to build, and powers to set binding targets for affordable and social housing. If necessary, local authorities should be allowed to borrow to fund new housing.
- We should change the way national targets are implemented, translating them into achievable local targets and rewarding councils that support sustainable housing growth.
- We should reform the Land Compensation Act. At the moment, land that might have planning permission is sold at a hugely inflated value. Reforming the Act would allow councils to buy land for development at current market rate, rather than the increased cost associated with development.
- We should give councils powers to control the number of second homes and holiday lets.
Better planning
By giving more responsibility to councils and housing associations for delivering our housing, we can also improve the provision of services. Rather than building just where developers want, councils would be better able to coordinate new homes with the infrastructure they need. They would also be much better able to make sure new developments minimise impact on the environment and enhance nature recovery.
Of course, there will remain a major role for private developers in delivering houses. But people’s homes are too important to be left entirely to the private sector – and currently the balance is not right.
By reforming the planning system – rebalancing it in favour of local authorities and communities and away from private corporations – we can start to deliver the homes that people need without swamping existing communities or crippling our infrastructure.
If we do that, then not only will fewer people be opposed to developments in their area, but more people will be able to afford a home.
Our NHS and social care services are in a desperate state. NHS and care workers are struggling to hold the system together, but they urgently need more support. We need to invest more money, and target it better.
In particular, we need to invest in more GPs to help people access the treatment they need more quickly, and to invest in care packages to help people get home from hospital. Doing that would help the whole system start to function more efficiently and more effectively. Many of my friends and family have dedicated their careers to the NHS, including my wife who is a hospital doctor. I know that if we support them to do their jobs, we can get our health and social care services working again.
When I meet people across East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency, the state of the NHS probably triggers the greatest strength of feeling.
On one hand, it inspires almost universal pride, and respect for the professionals who work in our health centres and hospitals. On the other, it generates despair at the state into which the NHS has been allowed to fall.
A system struggling to cope
In particular, I hear from people who are unable to access GP appointments when they need them. In East Grinstead and Crawley Down especially, health centres run by Modality Mid Sussex have been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission, and placed in special measures.
This is a symptom of a system that has reached breaking point. Across the NHS, health professionals are struggling to do their jobs under almost impossible conditions. They want to care for people and are trained to do so, but the system is letting them down and they are exhausted. Many are leaving or retiring early, many others are absent from work with ill health, including anxiety, stress and depression.
For patients, the result is often an inability to see their doctor or to schedule a routine operation.
A multitude of causes
There are too many reasons for this state of affairs to list them all in this blog. They include chronic underinvestment over many years across the NHS and social care, lack of proper workforce planning, combined with increased demand from an ageing population and long-term health trends including rises in obesity and diabetes. The Covid pandemic placed an already creaking system under intolerable strain.
A way forward
The most important question, of course, is what to do to about it.
There are no easy solutions. Getting our health and social care services to where we want them to be will take years. But here are some key things I think we need to do immediately:
Invest in more GPs: GPs are the linchpin of the NHS. When GPs are properly supported they can provide excellent care in the community, and help patients access other NHS services if they need them. When people can’t access GPs, they turn up elsewhere in the system, like A&E. That not only means those people don’t always get the best care, it is also extremely inefficient and expensive, wasting NHS resources.
Since 2015, we’ve seen an the introduction of physician associates, with plans for more in future. There are a number of ways they can support general practice, but they are not a substitute for fully trained GPs.
The Liberal Democrats have committed to delivering 8000 more GPs, by recruiting, training and retaining them. This would support a guarantee that people can see a GP within a week, or 24 hours in urgent cases. Though this would cost money up front, it would save more in the long-run by helping to get the system functioning more effectively.
Invest in social care: If GPs are the front door of the NHS, social care is the back door. We will not fix the problems in our health service as long as people are unable to be discharged safely from hospital.
We are proposing to provide free personal care for people at home, based on the model introduced by the Labour-Liberal Democrat government in Scotland in 2002. We would introduce a real living wage for care workers, and provide a package of support for unpaid care workers. Specifically, that should include cancelling the debts of people who have been overpaid for carer’s allowance – many of whom are being pursued for thousands of pounds by the Department for Work of Pensions.
Invest in mental health: The country is experiencing a mental health crisis, and for too long mental health has not been prioritised in our health system. While awareness of mental health issues is starting to improve, services are still not given enough support. Our proposals to improve mental health services include introducing walk-in centres in every community for young people who need mental health support; reduce ‘out of area’ placements so that people aren’t sent a long way from home for treatment; and placing a mental health specialist in every school.
Support health professionals: Many NHS staff members are experiencing their own challenges with mental health, as a result of the conditions in which they are working. I am pleased that recent proposals to cut the mental health service for doctors, NHS Practitioner Health, were reversed after an outcry – but we need to do a lot more to support our health workers to stay healthy. That is not only vital for them personally, but will also mean the NHS retains more essential workers that it so desperately needs.
Take a more holistic approach to the country’s health: As well as improving and investing in health and social care services, we need to start thinking about health more broadly. So much ill health is caused by broader social factors, including poverty, inequality and the environment. We should build a preventative approach to ill-health into programmes across government, that will improve people’s health and save resources in the long term.
That should include gradually restoring the Public Health Grant to 2015 levels. We also need to look at benefits and entitlements, like the Personal Independence Payment, to make sure they are genuinely supporting people to be healthy – by enabling people who would benefit from returning to work, and properly supporting those who can’t.
Health is such a hugely important and complex area, and there is so much more to say. I hope these ideas help set out some key priorities that I would work towards as your MP.