Climate justice, action and updates from the South East
In 2019, councils across the South East declared climate emergencies. Seven years on, we have read the plans, the budgets and the minutes. Here is how to tell delivery from a press release, and how to audit your own council before the next full meeting.
Town centres across the South East are flicking the switch on Christmas lights again — and too many councils are hoping nobody asks what the display costs the climate. Here’s how rebels can turn the festive glow into a serious question about climate emergency promises, public money and low-carbon celebrations.
It's 4am, the alert has gone out, and the first person at your door is a volunteer in a hi-vis with a phone torch and no statutory powers. Across Kent, Sussex and Surrey, flood wardens are absorbing a job that should belong to somebody with a budget — and this winter, rebels need to decide whether we're backing them or replacing them.
South East classrooms are overheating, flooding and waiting for retrofit while councils keep the worst of the data behind the gate. Here’s how parents, carers and rebels can turn the school run into a climate campaign in 2026.
Your blue bin gets collected, waved off, and then the paper trail goes quiet. This is what happens to South East recycling once it leaves the kerb — and why "we recycle 50%" is not the climate flex your council thinks it is.
Everyone's arguing about the solar farm in the field. Almost nobody is arguing about the fenced compound down the lane that decides whether it ever gets switched on. Here's how the grid connection queue really works in the South East — and who's quietly skipping it.
Another solar farm application, another parish meeting, another fight framed as fields versus climate. But the South East's real solar argument isn't farmland against panels — it's about who owns the sun when it finally lands on a roof, a car park or a warehouse in your town.
The A27 Arundel Bypass is being sold as a congestion fix. But once you unpack induced demand and the scheme's carbon ledger, it looks a lot like a decision to lock in more driving for decades. Here is how South East rebels can pull the thread.
Crest a rise on the A2 or the M20 and the new skyline is corrugated. Mega-sheds are swallowing green-belt farmland across the South East faster than any housing scheme, and the approvals keep coming with a smile and a jobs figure. Here's who is saying yes — and how to make them say it out loud, in public, with you in the room.
Across the South East, councils are wrapping climate decisions in engagement exercises with no obvious exit. Here’s how to spot the delay, test whether your feedback actually changed anything, and turn consultation paperwork into accountability pressure.
Across the South East, people are sitting on allotment waiting lists for years — sometimes long enough to watch a child start school and finish primary. That queue isn't an accident of popularity. It's what happens when land is treated as an asset instead of infrastructure, and rebels and community growers are starting to say so out loud.
Insurers are not just hiking premiums across Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire — some are quietly walking away. This is what uninsurability looks like, who it hits first, and how climate-justice campaigners can force the industry into the light.
Across Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and the edges of the Thames Valley, bus routes are disappearing quietly — a timetable notice taped to a shelter, a consultation nobody heard about. It isn't just inconvenient. It pushes people into cars, hikes emissions and lands hardest on those who can least afford it. Here's the 2026 picture, and what rebels can do about it.
Every new data centre in the South East arrives with a glossy promise of green power and local jobs. But behind the planning application sits a very physical bargain: water, land, grid capacity and decades of energy demand. It’s time residents and councils read the small print.
Kent, Sussex and Surrey are being sold as England’s new wine country, with warming temperatures dressed up as a business opportunity. But behind the tasting-room gloss sits a harder question: who gets the land, the water and the profits — and who carries the risk?
MPs are very good at sounding green in a newsletter and very bad at voting like it. This is a practical, slightly cynical guide to reading your South East MP's actual climate record — and turning what you find into action at the next surgery.
A new wave of waste incinerators is being sold to the South East as 'energy recovery' — but the carbon accounting hides a dirty habit. Here's how local campaigns are fighting back, and how you can track the next planning application or pollution permit before the first lorry rolls in.
Your council pension fund is one of the biggest pots of money in the region — and some of it is still tied to fossil fuel expansion. Here's where the decisions get made, what the funds actually hold, and how to get in the room this winter.
Gatwick wants a second runway, Farnborough wants more private jets, and a string of smaller aerodromes are quietly expanding freight and charter flights. The word doing all the work is growth. Here's the maths behind the brochure — and the live fights you can still get into.
Conditions, stop-and-search, lock-on offences and what happens in custody — a plain-English run through the legal terrain facing climate activists in Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire this year. Not legal advice, but the groundwork you want in your head long before you need it.