Lib Dems best for environment says poll

9.57.03pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 31st May 2006

Lib Dems best to protect our planet says poll

A Friends of the Earth poll has put the Liberal Democrats well ahead of the other main parties in caring about climate change. Asked 'Which of the three main parties cares most about climate change?', nearly 83 per cent of the respondents named the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives were in second place on 12 per cent and Labour on 6 per cent.

The Friends of the Earth poll (based on 486 responses) follows a similar poll which found that the Liberal Democrats were thought to be the party which would do most to protect the environment. (ICM polled 1,006 people for The Guardian.)

This is the strongest showing on the environment for the Liberal Democrats in recent opinion polling. A similar poll for MORI in April 2005 suggested that 25 per cent of people thought the Liberal Democrats had the best policies to protect the natural environment, against 14 per cent for Labour and 8 per cent for the Tories.

Said Chelmsford Liberal Democrat Stephen Robinson (parliamentary candidate 2005): "These polls show that David Cameron's attempts to brand the Conservatives as 'green' are fooling no-one. It is the Lib Dems who have the track record and the policies for the future that will really put our environment first."

Here in Chelmsford the environment is high on the agenda for the Liberal Democrats as well. When the Lib Dems ran the Borough Council, they drafted a local plan that put sustainability at the heart of future development - a plan later abandoned by the Conservatives when they took over the Council. The Lib Dem Council also introduced and then expanded recycling; created a litter 'hit squad', and produced a biodiversity plan for the Borough.