Some of Martin's campaign successes ​

Anglian Water - local water supply 

In early 2025 Martin spotted a paragraph of complete gobbledegook in the ‘Water Cycle Study’ done as part of Colchester City Council’s local plan – which when translated basically meant that the main part of Colchester and surrounding rural areas north, west and south down to Mersea would go into ‘supply deficit’ by the end of the year.
In other words, we would not have enough water to meet the needs of the existing population, let alone the 20,000+ extra houses the government are demanding we build.
The reasons we don’t have enough water are:
1. The huge number of houses built in recent years – we do after all live in the driest part of the country.
2. Climate change and sea level rise means Anglian Water are having to reduce the amount they take from ground water – to avoid the risk of salt water under the sea being sucked in and making the aquifer unusable. However, as the local area gets 70% of its water supply from groundwater – this is a huge issue.
3. This year Anglian Water – who supply the main Colchester area west of the Colne will see their share of Ardleigh reservoir reduce from 70% to 50% as Affinity Water who supply the Tendring area need more water there.
Martin proposed a motion first at the local plan committee, then to a full council meeting, that the council should write to Housing Secretary Angela Rayner and Anglian Water – insisting that before any new housing  was built the government had to ensure that Colchester gets the major water re-use plant that instead of discharging treated wastewater into the Colne will mix it with river water and put the purified water back into the pipes. Anglian Water had said the area needed this, but it wasn’t funded as it wasn’t in their current (2025-30) five-year plan.
However, as a result of getting cross-party agreement on the motion, despite some initial opposition from Labour councillors, Martin got the motion passed – which is extremely rare for an opposition motion.
Four months later, in November 2025 Anglian Water announced the Colchester area would be getting a new multi-mullion pound water recycling centre which will eventually supply 24% of the area’s water needs.
SUCCESS!

Island planning policy 

​In July 2026 Martin’s first act as chair of the local plan committee was to oversee the committee’s adoption of an island policy. This requires planners to take account of both the unique environment and challenges of Mersea as a tidal island when considering housing developments. It was largely based on a draft Martin had proposed to planning officers and reflected a campaign promise he had made two years earlier.

Isolated coastal villages designation
In August 2026 Martin oversaw the adoption of a new planning designation for isolated villages which have only a single access road in/out and are mainly on the coast. It recognises that they would be difficult to evacuate in an emergency such as a wildfire or flood as if the road was cut people could only be evacuated across the fields, leaving the elderly and disabled particularly vulnerable. It requires planners to take account of this when considering housing developments. It applies to

• East Mersea
• West Mersea
• The eastern part of Fingringhoe
• Salcott 

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Rail improvements

​While a councillor in rural Suffolk Martin spearheaded a successful three and  half year campaign to persuade Network Rail to install level crossing barriers at a dangerous unmanned rural level crossing – eventually taking the issue right up to the chief executive of Network Rail. 
(Photo: Martin at the new level crossing barriers with then Suffolk Coastal MP Rt Hon Dr  Thérèse Coffey MP)

Coastguard stations on the East Coast

Two months before the 2010 general election Martin exposed the then  government’s plan to close main coastguard stations on the East Coast including  Walton on the Naze and Great Yarmouth - and even relocate them to Cambridge inland (!). He continued to campaign when the coalition government came to power - which then substantially scaled back the original closure plan.​
(Photo: Guest editorial by Martin in Anglia Afloat)

UK definition of extremism

Before the Conservatives came to power Martin, who was a regular columnist for Conservative Home repeatedly argued that extremism that ‘extremism’ had to be defined as meaning extreme in relation to historic British values such as parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and one law applying equally to all people.
That paradigm shift was enacted when David Cameron’s Conservative led government came to power and set out clearly in the government’s 2015 Counter Extremism Strategy which defined extremism as vocal or active opposition to our fundamental British values, which were defined as those which met all of the following three criteria
1. have evolved over the centuries
2. Become embedded in our most important institutions
3. shared by the overwhelming majority of the population
That paradigm shift was enacted when David Cameron’s Conservative led government came to power in 2010.
This was really important because previous Blair-Brown government had used a relative definition of extremism which allowed them to justify engaging with groups who wanted to impose shari’a in the UK, because they could always find Islamist groups who were even more extreme than these ‘moderates.’
Martin has continued to argue for both a clear articulation of British values and against the appeasement of extremism, including recently exposing what Nigel Farage’s plan to negotiate with the Taliban would mean.

Brexit

Martin co-led the successful ‘Vote Leave’ campaign in Waveney on the Suffolk coast which achieved a majority for leave of 16,934 in what was then one of the most marginal constituencies in the UK - substantially above both the regional and national averages.
​He also wrote for Brexit Central on some of the key constitutional issues and when negotiations with the EU were being blocked by the Irish government, had a letter published in the Dublin based Irish Times, within 24 hours of which the Irish government withdrew their objections. 
​(Photo: Martin with Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP, Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP and Rt Hon George Eustace MP in Lowestoft).