Phil Bennion

Phil Bennion as a Campaigner & Councillor

Phil Bennion served on Lichfield District Council representing the Mease and Tame ward from 1999 to 2011, as opposition spokesperson on Environment and Development. He was previously vice chair of Cultural Services Scrutiny Committee before it was disbanded.

He won the Lichfield Rural East County seat in a by-election in 2002, having finished third in 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001, narrowly losing the division to the Conservatives in 2005. He served on the Social Care and Education scrutiny committees as well as acting as budget spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat group.

Greenfield Development

Tamworth Borough has had an expansionist agenda for decades, eyeing the rural expanses in Lichfield District to the north and west of Tamworth. Phil Bennion has been a leading campaigner in the area to prevent inappropriate large-scale development to the north of Tamworth while supporting moves for small scale affordable housing in the local villages.

Staffordshire Health Services

Phillip Bennion has taken action when local health services have been threatened.

When the night closure of the Minor Injuries Unit at Sir Robert Peel Hospital on the outskirts of Tamworth was first rumoured he raised the issue at District Council. When residents asked for help in raising a petition he drew up the text for them and distributed copies by email. He joined the campaigners in Tamworth town centre for two days where they collected 2000 signatures. He acted as spokesperson for the campaigners in discussions with the Primary Care Trust. When the number of signatories reached 5000 the PCT deferred the decision and the service is still open two years later.

Affordable Housing

Phil Bennion has been campaigning for over 20 years on the issue of the lack of affordable housing. He is a strong supporter of innovative ways pioneered by Lib Dem councils to fund new affordable homes using part rent part part by schemes working closely with housing associations.

"In attractive villages surrounding the West Midlands conurbation, affordable housing now means social housing", says Phil. "Those with enough money will pay almost anything to live in a nice village. This area is similar to many rural areas in the West Midlands, characterised by low median but high average incomes. Wealthy incomers are welcome, but we must ensure that local people on low incomes are not forced out. The problem is now spreading to small and medium sized towns, where local youngsters have no hope of getting started on the housing ladder."

Campaigning for the Environment

Phil has campaigned on Environmental issues and the threat of climate change for many years and is a member of Green Liberal Democrats. He has written a paper on gave a paper to the GLD conference on the issues surrounding biofuels. As a councillor he supported efforts to encourage action on climate change and a more pro-active approach to energy efficiency and renewables and push for the highest possible standards.

When Lichfield District Council introduced its award-winning recycling scheme Phil and his Lib Dem colleagues supported the ruling group working cross-party.

Phil is still fighting to protect ancient woodlands from falling to mineral extraction. He believes that sand and gravel extraction in the Tame valley in Staffordshire and other areas has had an influence on recent record flood levels. Before it was abolished, Phil sat on the Environment Agency Local Area Group covering Staffordshire, North Warwickshire, Birmingham and the Black Country for 6 years. He is calling for these groups to be established as they used to provide a vital link between the Environment Agency and the rest of society and industry.

Bus Services

Phil became a local champion for bus users when he was his local Parish Council chairman in the mid 1990s. The local service had been subject to several different operators, with no continuity and reliability problems. He spent 10 years working with County officers in improving the service. He undertook surveys on his Focus leaflets to find out what was needed and made his own recommendations to the Council. In 2005 he succeeded in getting local services upgraded to eight daily buses, from the previous three or five, to help local pensioners in particular who have no access to a car.

Care Services

Phil Bennion is a strong supporter of the work Liz Lynne did as MEP campaigning for better social care services and applying best practice. He will continue to press for an EU-wide non-statutory code of conduct to raise standards and aspirations in long term care and tackle the scandal of elder abuse.

Phil has no ideological view as to whether Home and Residential Care services are provided by the public or private sector. The important thing is that they are available to all those who need them when they need them.

As a county councillor Phil raised the issue of carers travelling time as private care agencies were refusing to take rural cases. He also helped draw up residential care contracts against a backdrop of neighbouring authorities with higher block grants competing for care places.

Post Offices

Phil, who has run longstanding campaigns to stop Post Office closures, believes that Post Offices must be enabled to act as multifunctional service centres, both in rural areas and in the suburbs.

He says: "It is pointless forcing people to travel several miles to access services when a 'one stop shop' in every community could retain both services and social cohesion. I welcome the new deal announced by the UK government but believe there is even more we can learn from the way local services are delivered in some other EU countries."

Better railways and better connections

Phil is a supporter of better rail services and especially to improve the connections between different services and more park and ride facilities to help encourage people to use trains. As a councillor he mounted a survey which proved that a large number of people driving along congested roads to Birmingham International from many miles away in Staffordshire due to the lack of parking at local stations.

Phil was a prominent voice in the battle to upgrade the Trent Valley section of the West Coast Mainline to four tracks and helped to convince local Tory MPs of the value of the project, which prevented local stopping trains being axed when the intensive Pendolino service was introduced.

He is a supporter of the High Speed 2 project in principle as an essential boost to the region's economy and new businesses and as further capacity upgrades on the WCML are impractical. However, Phil remains unhappy with some aspects of the preferred route of HS1, especially the poor connections with existing trains proposed at the new International station and in Birmingham, where travellers arriving at New Street to use HS2 will have to walk to a new station east of the current Moorfields station at Curzon Street. He also believes further work needs to be done to mitigate environmental intrusion along the route in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and supports calls for an early start on planning the best route north of Lichfield to Stoke and the north west and the spur to Derbyshire and north east.

Campaigning to protect our Canals

Phil has supported efforts to restore some of this region's abandoned canals and was part of the successful campaign to prevent the M6Toll severing canals in two places. He criticised the DEFRA cuts by the last government to British Waterways to pay for the EU fines on the UK due to late payments to farmers and the overspend on the Rural Payments Agency IT system.