Plans to turn Clyst Valley Regional Park into a wildlife haven, have been nominated for a national accolade.

Adam Manning www.midweekherald.co.uk 

East Devon District Council (EDDC) is thrilled to announce the park’s 25-year masterplan has been shortlisted in finals for the ‘Excellence in Plan Making’, as part of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards 2022.

The award recognises the value of plan making coupled to community engagement. EDDC has carried out extensive community work through two £200,000 lottery projects – ‘Great trees in the Clyst Valley’ and ‘Routes for Roots’. One of successes of the latter has been the weekly wellbeing walks that EDDC has led to help reduce isolation and improve mental and physical health for 40 adults.

The plan has been hailed for the focus it has given to making the park more sustainable and promote wellbeing, for example, by working towards 30 per cent tree cover in the Clyst Valley by 2050.

As part of this EDDC has worked with 250 school children and adults from the Broadclyst and Cranbrook area to plant trees and shrubs to suck up carbon, including planting Britain’s rarest tree – the Black Poplar.

The park is also UK’s newest regional park – prompting interest from the National Trust and Bromsgrove District Council who want to learn from EDDC and see if they can create their own regional park. The creation of 10 regional parks in the urban fringe was one of the recommendations EDDC made to the trust’s national report about ‘future parks’. The parks would generate £600million per year in health benefits, contribute to eight per cent of the national tree planting target, and provide £2 of health and amenity benefits for every £1 invested over 30 years.

Councillor Geoff Jung, EDDC’s portfolio holder for coast, country, and environment, said: “I am really delighted for the team at EDDC that their hard work and dedication has been recognised for the Clyst Valley Regional Park masterplan being selected to be shortlisted for the final. It well deserved.

“A Nature Recovery Network forms part of the masterplan and ambitious targets have been set for nature, people, and climate. Our ‘Clyst Canopy’ project for many more trees, of the right type, in the right place dovetails into our ambitious targets for our East Devon’s climate change initiatives with an ambitious target of 30 per cent for the Clyst Valley from just 12 per cent “It is vital that this council at the same time as providing plans to provide to build 948 dwellings a year within the district, which is required by central Government it’s also imperative to improve, enhance, and protect our landscape and increase the biodiversity throughout the area.”

Sorry not sorry. Deliver, deliver, deliver.

79 organisations have joined together to write an open letter to the Prime Minister urging her to change the Government’s trajectory on environmental deregulation, which is set to harm our people, planet and prosperity.

Truss has no mandate to pursue any of this – Owl

www.wcl.org.uk

Dear Prime Minister

Your government’s recent moves toward environmental deregulation will hasten the decline of our natural world.

Together, The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and Planning and Infrastructure Bill proposals to weaken planning protection could put paid to the chances of meeting legally-binding climate and nature targets, create uncertainty for vulnerable businesses, shatter the long-term sustainability of our economy, and unleash environmental losses that could reduce quality of life for millions of people. Coupled with a potential rowing back on the Agricultural Transition, they also mark a radical departure from the manifesto commitment to “the most ambitious environmental programme on Earth” under which the Conservative government was elected.

Laws that protect the bedrock of our environment—air and water quality, soil health, heritage, and wildlife—must not be weakened. Doing so could hasten the torrent of pollution that blights our rivers and streams and increase the damaging presence of pesticides across a range of habitats. It could lead to losses of green spaces and heritage assets that are precious to communities and important for people’s mental health and wellbeing. It could further pollute the air we breathe, with consequences for public health and the costs to the NHS. Of course, the consequences for wildlife could mean that species and habitats are lost from our shores. Animal welfare regulations that ensure better quality of life for millions of farm and companion animals are also at risk, and with them the UK’s reputation as a welfare world leader.

The argument that these laws impose unnecessary burdens on business, as suggested in the growth plan announced on 23.09.22, is unfounded and short-sighted, based on an old-fashioned view of business needs. Progressive businesses in key growth industries understand that a healthy environment is a prerequisite of a healthy economy, that their customers want to see them working to advance the protection of the environment and that nature recovery and decarbonisation are market opportunities. As the Treasury’s Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity conclusively demonstrated, economic security depends on environmental security and any growth agenda that does not include sustainable management of nature will be unsuccessful.

The removal of regulations and the review of other environmental policies, without a clear plan for what will replace them, is extremely disruptive to businesses and communities and could not come at a worse time. Laws like the Habitats Regulations are not some useless legacy of European law—they are among our most effective conservation laws. Changing the rules would create years of delay and uncertainty at a time when stability and environmental action are needed most. Any sense that costs would be saved is an illusion. The costs of environmental damage would be multiplied and simply shifted to the communities who suffer the consequences.

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill sets an unreasonable and unnecessary timeline for removal of EU-retained laws. DEFRA is responsible for hundreds of retained laws that remain essential for our environment. Removal when there is no clear plan or mandate for an alternative could set back environmental delivery by years. The Government should be focused on implementing them better and investing in our environment. DEFRA’s EU-retained environmental laws should not be part of this process of mass deregulation.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill proposals to weaken environmental planning rules in “Investment Zones” around the country would be similarly misconceived. The Habitats Regulations protect precious natural habitats and our most vulnerable wildlife. Simply stripping away the rules would not solve problems like the chronic pollution of our rivers; it would be a smokescreen for continued environmental harm. Rather than weaken environmental rules, environmental recovery, environmental monitoring and investment in natural infrastructure should be key tenets of any proposed investment zones.

While reasonable and positive reform can be achieved, it has to be based on careful consideration, grounded in evidence and consultation. Change for change’s sake is not a public priority. Support for existing UK environmental standards and protections is resolutely high in constituencies up and down the country, so any changes must be based on clear proposals for change and evidence of what that will deliver. It is particularly concerning to see the un-evidenced push for environmental deregulation accompanied by suggestions that the Government could weaken Environmental Land Management scheme, despite clear evidence that this sustainable approach will deliver for farmers, the public and for nature and climate.

On behalf of the millions of people who care for and depend on our natural world, we hope you will step away from deregulation, and the attack on nature it would constitute. There is an opportunity to instead focus on achieving huge benefits for our economy, for communities and the Government’s green legacy, by delivering on great green goals.

This Government has made some bold and impressive environmental promises. We applaud the aim of passing on nature in better condition. Our hopes for the future are raised by the legal target to halt the decline of wildlife by 2030. We were delighted to hear your pledge to lead a delegation to global COP-15 nature talks in Montreal, where the UK can play a leading diplomatic role. We all support the target to achieve net zero. These goals are all jeopardised by a deregulatory agenda

It would be totally inconsistent to set world-leading targets, while sweeping away the regulations needed to achieve them.

Yours sincerely

Beccy Speight, CEO, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)

Hilary McGrady, Director General, National Trust

Craig Bennett, CEO, The Wildlife Trusts

Abi Bunker, Director of Conservation & External Affairs, The Woodland Trust

Tanya Steele, CEO, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK

Miriam Turner and Hugh Knowles, Co-CEOs, Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland)

Sarah Fowler, CEO, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT)

Sarah McMonagle, Acting Director of Campaigns & Policy, CPRE The Countryside Charity

Laura Clarke OBE, CEO, Client Earth

Mark Lloyd, CEO, The Rivers Trust

Sandy Luk, CEO, Marine Conservation Society

Pat Venditti, Interim Executive Director, Greenpeace UK

Hugo Tagholm, CEO, Surfers Against Sewage

Allison Ogden-Newton, CEO, Keep Britain Tidy

David Bowles, Head of Public Affairs & Campaigns, RSPCA

Neil Redfern, Executive Director, Council for British Archaeology

Tompion Platt, Director of Operations & Advocacy, The Ramblers

Darren York, CEO, The Conservation Volunteers

James Blake, CEO, Youth Hostel Association (England & Wales)

Rebecca Wrigley, CEO, Rewilding Britain

Nick Measham, CEO, Wildfish

Andy Knott MBE, CEO, League Against Cruel Sports

Paul Davies, CEO, British Mountaineering Council

Andy Atkins, CEO, A-Rocha UK

Dr Tony Gent, CEO, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation

Andy Bool, CEO, Mammal Society

Rose O’Neill, CEO, Campaign for National Parks

Gill Perkins, CEO, Bumblebee Conservation Trust

Kate Ashbrook, General Secretary, Open Spaces Society

Steve Andrews, CEO Earthwatch Europe

Kit Stoner, CEO, Bat Conservation Trust

Matt Shardlow, CEO, Buglife

Julie Williams, CEO, Butterfly Conservation

Dr Hazel Norman, CEO, British Ecological Society

Dr Richard Handley, President, Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM)

Stuart Singleton-White, Head of Campaigns, Angling Trust

Professor Jeremy Biggs, CEO, Freshwater Habitats Trust

Sonul Badiani-Hamment, Director, FOUR PAWS UK

Ian Dunn, CEO, Plantlife

Jill Nelson, CEO, Peoples Trust for Endangered Species

Dr Andrew Terry, Director of Conservation and Policy, The Zoological Society of London (ZSL)

Mike Daniels, Head of Policy, John Muir Trust

Chris Butler-Stroud, CEO, Whale & Dolphin Conservation

Dr Ruth Tingay, Co-Director, Wild Justice

Peter Hambly, Executive Director, Badger Trust

Dr Michael Warhurst, Executive Director, CHEM Trust

David Bunt, CEO, Institute of Fisheries Management

Dr Mark Jones, Head of Policy, Born Free

Tom Hunt, National Coordinator, Association of Local Environmental Records Centres (ALERC)

Ali Hood, Director of Conservation, Shark Trust

Martin Janes, Managing Director, River Restoration Centre,

Rosalind Forbes-Adam, Founder, Woodmeadow Trust

Dave Morris, Chair, National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces

Sue James, Convenor, Trees and Design Action Group

Rachel Thompson MBE, The Trails Trust

Terry Fuller, CEO, The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management

Matthew Morgan, Director, Quality of Life Foundation

Graham Duxbury, CEO, Groundwork UK

Liz Milne, Chair, Association of Local Government Ecologists

Helen Griffiths, CEO, Fields in Trust

Sonia Kundu, Chairperson, Rail to Trail

Jayne Manley, CEO, Earth Trust

Dr Jo Judge, CEO, British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Jamie Christon, CEO, Chester Zoo

Charles Watson, Founder and Chairman, River Action

Jamie Agombar, Executive Director, Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK)

Jonathan Baillie, Chief Strategy Officer, On the Edge

Sue Morgan, CEO, Landscape Institute

Robin Nicholson, CBE, Convenor, The Edge

Mark Rowland, CEO, Mental Health Foundation

James Alexander, Chair, Finance Earth

Antoine Argouges, Founder & CEO, Tulipshare

Sean Clarke, Managing Director, Aardman

Charles Clover, Executive Director, Blue Marine Foundation

Pascale Moehrle, Executive Director, Oceana Europe

Sue Riddlestone OBE, CEO & co-founder, Bioregional

Chris Sowerbutts, Co-Founder, Lightrock Power

Jess Davies, Principal Investigator, QUENCH network coordination team (University of Lancaster)

Dr Richard Benwell, CEO, Wildlife & Countryside Link

[Drafted before Kwarteng was sacked but “investment zones” still firmly on the Truss agenda.]

Kwasi Kwarteng, the new chancellor, has announced plans which strip away the protection of the planning system from swathes of the countryside. These new ‘investment zones’ will threaten many of our most loved landscapes.

www.cpre.org.uk

Planned ‘investment zones’ are a huge threat to our countryside and landscapes

Responding to the announcement Tom Fyans, Interim CEO of CPRE, the countryside charity, said:

‘This government’s obsession with driving growth at all costs is alarming and will not end well for the countryside or our rural communities. Investment zones are deregulation on steroids. Successive governments have already severely weakened planning controls and the outcome has been a decade of disastrous design. CPRE’s own research in 2020 revealed that 75% of all new homes were mediocre or poor quality.

‘There’s a massive shortage of genuinely affordable homes in England. If the government wants to help increase development, then it must be the sorts of homes that people actually need. These new zones will be a failure if they simply allow house builders to build more large and expensive properties rather than the homes local people need.

‘This government is presenting a false choice between being green and boosting economic growth’

‘By weakening the Habitats Directive, the government is kicking away the key foundation of its own 30 by 30 pledge and it will critically undermine any meaningful attempt to tackle the nature emergency.

‘This government is presenting a false choice between being green and boosting economic growth. The Chancellor needs to invest in the energy efficiency of our homes – the best possible way to tackle the dual energy and cost of living crisis while kickstarting the economy is to retrofit our leaky homes.’

Time to act: what CPRE is doing

If these plans go ahead, developers will be given free rein to industrialise our countryside, changing the face of rural England for generations to come. We cannot allow the wildlife and landscapes that make our country so special to be robbed from us, our children or our grandchildren. We need to act fast to force the government to change direction.

CPRE and its supporters have defeated plans like this before. But this time the challenge is even greater: our environment is already suffering and we have never faced a government so reckless to the needs of nature.

‘The chancellor’s plan to use deregulation to hand power to developers is the exact opposite of what the countryside needs’

If ministers want to see booming high streets and more money in people’s pockets, we need to see investment in genuinely affordable homes and thriving communities, not trying to bypass the democratic planning system so that developers can cut down our woods and pour concrete over our fields.

Can you help?

We will throw everything we can at this campaign and ensure that as many MPs as possible hear the message loud and clear: industrialising the countryside is no answer to the challenges we face.

Read the exchange of letters following Kwarteng’s resignation and decide whether Kwarteng alone should be held to account for the failed mini-budget or whether it is matter of “joint enterprise” between him and Liz Truss

The new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt is busy shredding it, so where does this now place Liz Truss? – Owl

[PS Jeremy Hunt has a lot of “form” recorded on East Devon Watch. He has been very busy during and after the pandemic “reinventing” himself.]

Kwarteng MP for Spelthorne (no longer Chancellor at this point) to PM:

“…your vision of optimism, growth and change was right..

..For too long this country has been dogged by low growth and high taxation – that must still change if this country is to succeed…”

Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, replies:

“You have set in train an ambitious set of supply side reforms that this Government will proudly take forward. These include new investment zones to unleash the potential of parts of our country that have been held back for far too long and the removal of EU regulations to help British businesses succeed in the global economy..

… I know you will continue the mission that we share to deliver a low tax, high wage, high growth economy that can transform the prosperity of our country for generations to come….“