Interview: Former Surrey Graduate Zoe Franklin Pledges Support For Students Facing Problems 

Published on: 9 Dec, 2019
Updated on: 9 Dec, 2019

Chloe Meley

Zoe Franklin, Liberal Democrat candidate for Guildford, Cranleigh and the villages, was interviewed by Chloe Meley, of Surrey University’s Incite magazine about housing, healthcare, Brexit, and the climate crisis.

Zoe Franklin echoes the chief concern she has repeated at the hustings: the climate crisis. Agreeing environmental degradation neither begins nor ends in Guildford, she says the climate emergency would be her top priority locally and in Westminster.

Zoe Franklin

Believing immediate, decisive actions are necessary, she says: “we are the first generation to know we are destroying the planet and the last to be able to do something about it”.

She outlines three specific initiatives:

• Working with Guildford Borough Council to set up Citizen Climate Assemblies, to include youngsters and students;
• Challenging Surrey County Council about their recent licence authorising fracking in the Surrey Hills, which she believes is “incompatible with the climate emergency they announced just months ago”; and
• Working in Parliament and locally to guarantee better access to public transport, lower costs and higher reliability, and promoting cycling and walking. “As a community, we need to drastically rethink the way we travel to protect our local and global environment.”

Ms Franklin also says her party is committed to improving mental health services, notably through the creation of a Student Mental Health Charter, a binding document requiring all universities to provide high-quality student mental health support. Locally, she believes: “It is essential there is a medical centre on campus where students can access mental health support or get an appointment with a GP or nurse promptly.”

She says closure of the university’s medical centre is causing “great concern”, worsened by stories of students being turned away by over-stretched GP surgeries in town.

Ms Franklin talked of high prices of student housing when she was at Surrey university, pointing out that costs must have increased since, so she worries about what  impact that is having on students’ wallets and mental health. She wants the London weighting to be reviewed, so students in areas where prices are similar to the capital don’t have to struggle as much.

She believes “tackling the housing crisis is an essential part of lowering rents”, blaming the high cost of renting on the massive housing shortage across the South-east,  Ms Franklin wants landlords held to higher standards, because as “often students are an easy target for rogue landlords, especially at the end of the tenancy”.

Her Brexit stance is unsurprising. “Revoking Article 50 and remaining in the EU,” she said. “Our membership provides innumerable benefits to us as a nation, trade, freedom to live and work across the EU, partnership research and development projects, funding, the list goes on.”

She said leaving would inflict heavy damage on the UK’s economy, citing the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ prediction that the country would be £55 to £66 billion worse off in 10 years.

Ms Franklin concluded: “We are stronger as part of the EU and as a MP I would work tirelessly to ensure a People’s Vote on the final deal, and campaign for us to remain.”

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