Tag: environment

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The Environment Act

Photo credit: Malinka van der Gaauw

The Environment Act is the current version of the Environment Bill. This Bill should make provision about targets, plans and policies for improving the natural environment; for statements and reports about environmental protection; for the Office for Environmental Protection; about waste and resource efficiency; about air quality; for the recall of products that fail to meet environmental standards; about water; about nature and biodiversity; for conservation covenants; about the regulation of chemicals; and for connected purposes. This is a statement from our president, Maggie Jones, regarding the Environment Act.

Over the last few months, I have been busy with the government’s Environment Bill in the House of Lords.

Maggie Jones, President

It was undoubtedly a landmark Bill, with ambitions across many aspects of our environment. However, opportunities like this do not come along very often so the Lords, across the parties, worked very hard to improve it to make it a piece of legislation about which we could all be proud.

It was debated during preparations for COP26 and we were keen to emphasise that globally we face a biodiversity emergency as well as a climate emergency. In fact, recent reports have shown that the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with 41% of our species declining and 1 in 10 threatened with extinction.

So, one of our first achievements in the Bill was to introduce challenging measures to halt the decline in biodiversity by 2030.

This will be supplemented by the introduction of ‘biodiversity net gain’ as a condition for awarding planning permission locally. This would mean that new buildings would have to be offset by investment in alternative environmental projects. This is an exciting concept but still needs much more work – particularly on how it would relate to the government’s planning reforms.

Another issue which was hotly debated was the need to protect our ancient woodlands. These have been disappearing from our landscapes at an alarming rate. While the government’s promise to plant 30,000 hectares of new woodland each year is welcome, progress so far is slow; these new trees do not provide a comparable rate of carbon capture to that of existing established woodlands, so it was pleasing to get extra commitments to protect our ancient trees.

The Bill also included new commitments on waste recycling, creating more resource efficiency and cutting back on plastics. We were pleased to introduce new measures to charge manufacturers the full environmental impact costs of single-use items such as cups, plates and cutlery which create huge amounts of litter and marine pollution.

Air quality and tackling air pollution turned out to be a hugely controversial issue. We know that there are some 40,000 early deaths a year from the health effects of breathing in polluted air. We tried, unsuccessfully, to write into the Bill the introduction of World Health Organisation air quality standards by 2030. We will continue to campaign on this issue.

The challenge to prevent water companies discharging raw sewage into our rivers and seas was a major debate and it was fantastic to see the public campaign and support for the action we were proposing.

As a result, we made significant progress on controlling unauthorised discharges for the future, as well as requiring water companies to invest more resources into the outdated infrastructure.

These are just some of the many issues which we pursued over the months of debate.

However, we remain concerned that so much of the Bill has deadlines and targets in the distant future and we failed to win amendments to introduce interim targets which would have provided measurable data on progress at an earlier date.

Finally, a huge amount depends on the success of the Office of Environmental Protection which is a new organisation set up to replace the oversight of our environmental laws previously carried out by the EU.

We remain concerned that this new body is not sufficiently independent of government, nor does it have the same powers of redress.

So, overall, we were pleased with the progress we made in improving the Bill which has now become law, but only time will tell if the ambition of the Environment Act really will live up to its promise.

Maggie Jones

President, Friends of the South Downs, and Member of the House of Lords

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Taller Mobile Phone Masts?

Is the relaxation of Permitted Development Rights (PDRs) the right way forward to support the deployment of 5G and extend mobile networks?

Report by Friends of the South Downs Policy Officer, Victor Ient

After some considerable research using my own telecommunications experience, updated by consulting engineers currently working in the mobile sector, I have submitted, on behalf of the Society, our opposition to the relaxation of permitted development rights to allow the unregulated installation of many more and taller* mobile phone masts in Areas of Special Landscape Importance including national parks. We believe there is a viable alternative to just simply relaxing the rules. We have put forward a 6 point plan for a less obtrusive deployment to the Government in our submission to the public consultation. Click here to see a copy of what we said: Response to PDRs

*The current restriction on the height of the masts is set at 82ft (25m) but it could be doubled to 165ft (50m) — almost exactly the same height as Nelson’s column.

Telecommunications Clutter in the Countryside

Unfettered development of masts in protected areas will be a disaster for our beautiful countryside. What is the point of providing the highest planning protection for National Parks when the area could be littered with telecommunications clutter?  Keeping the planning rules as they are would ensure mobile operators would effectively have to comply with the purposes of the National Parks and protected landscapes.

Lack of Mobile Strategy in the Countryside

Sadly, the government has not previously put forward a strategy for the provision of mobile telecommunications in the countryside.  Many of the problems of the 1980s, when mobile base stations were first deployed, still exist today.  Figures differ, but it is quite clear that there are many areas where 4G is currently not available.

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The Agricultural Bill – major changes for farming and the environment!

Major changes will take 7 years to implement!

Report by Friends of the South Downs Policy Officer Victor Ient

 

The UK’s new Agriculture Bill has been called “one of the most significant pieces of legislation for farmers in England for over 70 years,” says Judith Tsouvalis* and Ruth Little* on The Conversation website. They continue  ‘It could directly affect the livelihoods of 460,000 people and determine the future of the 70% of UK land area (17.4 million hectares) currently under agricultural management. The bill sets out the UK’s approach to farming as it prepares to leave the European Union, replacing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that the UK has been part of since 1973’.

Where are we now? 

Whichever side you’re on, Brexit is now happening and that means the government has to put into UK legislation replacements for agricultural and environment policy which the UK signed up to over the years since the 1970s. Quite a task!  The government introduced the legislation in 2018 but it was withdrawn because the Brexit Bill had not been passed. Now, the Bill has had its ‘first reading’ in the House of Commons (this was without debate and passed through on 16 January 2020). The next stage will be for the Bill to have its ‘second reading’ (no date yet agreed) and then proceed to the House of Lords and eventually to receive the Royal assent and pass into law.

What are the changes? 

The Bill will replace the way the government manage and fund agriculture and the associated environment. In the EU this is via the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The new agricultual bill could be good for wildlife, bees and other pollinators in the countryside!

In the future, landowners will in future be paid to produce “public goods”. These are things that can benefit everyone but bring no financial reward to those who produce them. Examples are as better air and water quality, higher animal welfare standards, improved access to the countryside or measures to reduce flooding. In doing so the aim is to move the UK one step closer towards ‘a future where farmers are properly supported to farm more innovatively and protect the environment’.

Over the next seven years, farmers will move from the CAP regulations to a new system of Environmental Land Management (ELM). This will detail the terms and conditions under which farmers and land managers will receive funding.

In a notable change from the Bill published in 2018, the government will now provide support for farmers to improve the management of their soil, as recommended in CPRE’s report, ‘Back to the land’.  A major step forward! The government will reward farmers who protect and improve soil quality with measures like crop rotation, and give ministers new powers to regulate fertiliser use and organic farming. As Judith Tsouvalis and Ruth Little say, “Landscape-scale solutions to decarbonising agriculture and averting the climate crisis will require huge changes. They won’t be possible without popular support”.

What is not covered in the Bill?

With the EU legislation farmers in this country could rely upon protection against  substandard and cheap produce from outside the EU. This Bill provides no cover for such issues.

In the EU programmes of expenditure are agreed on a long-term basis, – usually a five-year programme. In other words the finances are fixed for a set period. Rarely have the UK government used long term financial planning principles. On the other hand the EU does have stable plans in all major policy areas. Such mid and long term planning is based on the Precautionary Principle.  It will be interesting to find out how the UK government proposes to replace the CAP subsidies for farming which amount to £3bn a year. This figure includes direct and indirect subsidies as reported by the FT.

* Judith Tsouvalis is a member of the joint DEFRA-Natural England Expert Panel on Social Science Evidence for Improving Environmental Land Management Outcomes. Ruth Little is a qualitative social scientist specialising in agricultural and food-related research. She is a lecturer in Geography at the University of Sheffield and works at the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs.