The region’s beauty masks a forgotten electorate lagging behind the rest of the nation in education and social mobility.

Alice Thomson www.thetimes.co.uk (extract)

…. the 5.6 million who work in the region often feel abandoned. They are rarely mentioned in the government’s levelling-up agenda, yet by the age of 11 the children of the southwest are the furthest behind of any English region, with only 37 per cent of children from disadvantaged backgrounds reaching expected levels in reading, writing and maths. Fewer children than in any other region go on to higher-level apprenticeships or university. Instead, young adults are more likely to be in unskilled work than their peers elsewhere. In the constituency of Bridgwater and West Somerset, 42 per cent are in unskilled employment compared with 28 per cent nationally.

Last year I was asked to join the South West Social Mobility Commission, which brings together major employers, charities and public services with the University of Exeter. It was a 17-year-old girl called Bella Dash who convinced me of the need for change. Bella and her mother had been made homeless in Devon on three occasions by the time she was nine and she still couldn’t read or write as she struggled to attend classes. Now she is working as a cleaner but in lockdown, when given a computer by her school, she decided to teach herself GCSEs, discovered learning and excelled in her exams. In October she is taking up a place at Oxford to read geography. “Not all my friends want to become professors, but I don’t feel many of us are being given a chance to be anything other than hospitality and care staff or farm workers,” she said.

One of the biggest blocks on aspiration is transport. School absenteeism has increased since the pandemic to 7.9 per cent, the highest in the country, but attendance has been a problem for years as pupils struggle to reach their schools when bus routes have been eviscerated and trains are often cancelled. Transport investment stands at £308 a head compared with a national average of £474. Students living in Dulverton, on Exmoor, face a 12-hour day to reach their nearest higher-education college. Pupils run the daily risk of missed connections. The dropout rate at sixth form is 27 per cent. The area needs more accessible colleges and more inducement to get there. Under-18s in London and other cities don’t have to pay for their bus fare. They shouldn’t have to here.

Another issue is the lack of high-speed broadband, except in Johnson’s Exmoor holiday cottage where a crack team of engineers laid expensive cabling. Every rural child needs a connection for remote learning. The University of Exeter has developed a tutoring project for undergraduates to help hone the basic writing skills of 12-year-olds. Every pupil showed an improvement in accuracy. Students were given credits and gained teaching experience; pupils said it boosted their confidence and allowed them to hear about campus life. “It’s a win-win,” says Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the university.

Change can happen, but the Tories’ neglect of their far-flung shires shows in the polls. They lost Tiverton in a by-election last year and they’re about to lose Somerton and Frome. If the general election was held tomorrow, newly drawn constituencies such as Plymouth Moor View would be won by Labour with a huge swing. Electorally the West Country is up for grabs — neither Labour nor the Lib Dems are loved — but politicians of all parties need to concentrate on rolling out policy change, not just beach towels, in this idyllic but unequal land.

“The River Wye has basically turned into a green pea soup. It smells, and what used to be beautiful clean gravel on the riverbed is covered with green slime. The river is now very close to complete ecological collapse.”

Helena Horton www.theguardian.com 

A loophole in the UK’s pollution legislation allows farmers to pollute rivers by spreading excess manure, an investigation has found, with those acting unlawfully not facing any action in most cases.

The government introduced new farming rules for water in 2018, aimed at cleaning up England’s waterways. However, after lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), including at least two meetings with ministers, the guidance was watered down.

According to internal guidance revealed by the investigations website openDemocracy, polluting farmers may not even be informed of their rule-breaking.

Some farm businesses pollute waterways by spreading excess animal waste on their land. When it rains, this runs off into local rivers, causing nutrient pollution and in severe cases, ecosystem collapse. Natural England recently downgraded the status of the River Wye, a designated special area of conservation, due to a decline of key species. The decline is due partly to large quantities of manure being washed into the river from nearby farms.

In August 2021, the NFU met Lord Benyon, then the parliamentary undersecretary for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), to discuss the legislation. Four months later, it attended another meeting, this time with Victoria Prentis MP, then the minister of state for Defra, along with officials from the Environment Agency and the British Egg Industry Council and British Poultry Council, two trade associations representing farmers.

In response to a freedom of information request, Defra refused to release the minutes of this second meeting, claiming policymaking in this area was “still ongoing” and that releasing this information could “risk inhibiting officials from having full, frank and open discussions as part of the process of formulating policy”.

But in written evidence submitted to parliament’s environment, food and rural affairs committee, the NFU said it was decided in this meeting that an Environment Agency team tasked with implementing the legislation would have its terms of reference “rewritten” to “reflect our dialogue”.

The guidance now says: “Where a land manager has acted in accordance with the statutory guidance, we will not inform them that they are non-compliant with the FRfW (farming rules for water).” It allows manure to be spread in direct contradiction with the rules, as long as all “reasonable precautions” are taken to reduce pollution, or in circumstances when reducing manure use is not “reasonably practicable”.

“The regulations have not changed,” the document states, but goes on to say that enforcement action will not usually be taken providing farmers “can demonstrate that they are operating in accordance with the statutory guidance even if they are not compliant with regulation 4(1)(a)(i) and (ii)”.

These specific regulations are in place to limit how much poultry manure can be spread on farmland, ensuring that nutrients “[do] not exceed the soil and crop needs or give rise to a significant risk of agricultural diffuse pollution”.

Charles Watson, the founder and chairperson of River Action UK, said: “That loophole is why the soils are now overloaded several times above and beyond what they can take. It is cause and effect, black and white.

“The River Wye has basically turned into a green pea soup. It smells, and what used to be beautiful clean gravel on the riverbed is covered with green slime. The river is now very close to complete ecological collapse.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “The farming rules for water are one of a number of regulations we use as part of our advice-led regulatory approach with farmers, to protect water quality and nature. If we find pollution or significant risk of pollution occurring we will not hesitate to take further action – evidenced by the enforcement action being taken against 140 farms this financial year.”

The NFU deputy president, Tom Bradshaw, said: “Farmers are working hard, through a range of voluntary measures, to prevent valuable nutrients and soil from contributing to water pollution. We can and want to do more and are working with government, local authorities and regulatory bodies to find solutions to address farming’s impact, so that we can better maintain and protect the health of our rivers.

“With a growing population, there is a clear need for sustainable, affordable and environmentally friendly food. We will continue to work closely with partners and stakeholders across all sectors so that collectively we can drive improvements that benefit water quality in our rivers.”

Seems to confirm he is “uninterested” in the environment, maybe it doesn’t feature on the spreadsheet.

Build the houses first, the essential infrastructure such as upgrading sewage works (and schools, medical resources, transport links etc) can/may follow later.  – Owl

Rishi Sunak has given his backing to plans to lift a ban blocking the construction of tens of thousands of properties imposed by the government’s environment watchdog.

Oliver Wright, Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.co.uk 

The Times understands that the prime minister has intervened in a stand-off between Michael Gove, the housing secretary, and Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, over rules imposed by Natural England that have brought housing developments to a halt across large swathes of the country.

More than 70 councils have been forced to block developments of up to 120,000 new homes because of concerns about the potential additional pollution of local rivers.

Under so-called “nutrient neutrality” rules, developers can only get planning permission if they offset the impact of extra sewage from new homes by working elsewhere in the catchment area to balance out the additional pollution. That typically involves creating wetlands to strip out excess nitrogen and phosphate pollution in rivers.

In the longer term, water companies are due to upgrade their sewage treatment works to reduce the issue, but critics have warned that the government needs to take action faster to unblock developments ahead of a general election.

A senior government source said that Sunak was “minded” to support a move by Gove to change the law to allow developments to go ahead in advance of sewage treatment works being upgraded. The change is expected to be included in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill currently going through parliament.

The source said: “Exactly how the new law will work is still being worked through but, in principle, the prime minister is minded to act.”

Sunak’s intervention follows months of behind-the-scenes wrangling between Gove’s Levelling Up department, which is responsible for housing, and Coffey’s environment department, Defra.

One government source said: “It would be fair to say that Michael and Thérèse don’t see eye to eye on this.” The source said Defra did not want any breach of what it sees as “sacrosanct nutrient neutrality rules” and was worried about a “backlash from the environmental movement”.

They added: “But the reality is that unless we can come up with an allowable work-around, then we simply can’t build the homes in very large parts of the country that we’ve promised. The PM has now indicated that he is backing Michael.”

Defra is fiercely opposed to the change and The Times’ Clean it Up campaign has also urged the government to keep the rules.

Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, said: “Nutrient neutrality is established in UK environmental law and has been tested in the courts. It rightly prevents wastewater from new housing developments adding to pollution in areas internationally protected because of their unique value to nature and wildlife.”

He said that scrapping the rules would endanger legal targets to turn around “terrifying declines” in species. Juniper added: “We simply cannot halt and reverse the decline in nature or improve the quality of our rivers — as the government has legally committed itself to doing and is rightly demanded by the public — if we don’t mitigate the impact of pollution sources.”

Water campaigners said that ditching the protections would be disastrous in areas already under pressure from sewage and farm pollution, with only 14 per cent of English rivers considered to be in “good” ecological condition.

James Wallace, the chief executive of River Action, a charity that supports community river groups around the country, said: “Our rivers are in crisis. Nutrient neutrality rules provide a glimmer of hope for some of our most protected rivers by ensuring development does not further add to pollution of rivers. It is absolutely absurd for the government to roll back on this.”

Professor Peter Hammond, of the environmental group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, said that the regulations were also needed to improve monitoring of sewage spills and run-off from farms. He said that dropping the rules would be bad for “public health and biodiversity”.

However, a spokesman for the Home Builders Federation said that a failure to act would have a devastating impact on pressing housing needs, adding: “The government has allowed this situation to drag on for four years and a solution is desperately needed. Builders are going out of business and around 145,000 desperately needed homes are on hold, despite the fact their construction would have a negligible impact on river pollution.”

A government spokesperson said: “The government remains committed to delivering housing in areas impacted by nutrient neutrality and is supporting local authorities and developers. We recognise the urgency of this issue and have taken substantial steps to both unlock housing now and to address the underlying causes of nutrient pollution at source.”