Almost £2m given to candidates in the 2024 general election has “essentially disappeared” from the public’s view of British political campaign finance, a report claims.

Henry Dyer www.theguardian.com 

It notes that 170 candidates received in total almost £2m more than they were legally allowed to spend locally during the election, raising questions about where the surplus funds went after the campaign. The donors who funded them are also tricky to identify, especially if the candidate was unsuccessful.

The effect is a lack of transparency around who is funding constituency campaigns and what subsequently happens to excess funds.

If a candidate received more money than they could spend, they might transfer the surplus to the central party. As a result, parties could use candidates as a “back door” for money from donors hoping to remain anonymous, the report says.

The report’s authors, an academic at the University of Antwerp and a Liberal Democrat peer, have recommended three solutions to make it easier for the public to see who is funding candidates.

“There is a lot of money flowing to candidates that essentially disappears from the readily accessible public record,” Mark Pack, the president of the Lib Dems and a peer, told the Guardian.

Details of donations to central parties and local associations are routinely reported by the Electoral Commission, with extra disclosures made during elections. But contributions given to candidates, and how much they spent, are not available for public inspection from council returning officers until more than a month after polling day.

The Electoral Commission publishes headline figures per candidate on donations and expenditure, without the details of who funded their campaigns, months after the election.

The report’s authors, Chris Butler and Pack, sought a sample of the spending returns submitted by the candidates from the Electoral Commission. The watchdog provided them, but removed the identity of the donors.

This results in an “illogical” situation in which donors who give directly to a party, subject to a minimum reporting threshold, appear in the Electoral Commission’s database, while donors to individual candidates are obscured.

Pack said he thought this was “hard to justify” on the watchdog’s cited grounds of data protection. “The point of there being a place to say who your donors are in the form is so that people can look it up and check,” he said.

Pack believes there are reasonable grounds for the Electoral Commission to revise its position. The government is expected to bring a new elections bill, which could be an opportunity to change the complicated rules on political financing.

As for the almost £2m surplus funds from the last election, “we don’t know what is happening to that money”, Pack said. He suggested that some may have been given to the central parties, which could use it against their national spending limit while benefiting the candidate’s local efforts, such as with target letters to voters in that constituency.

“There is not a clear ‘what did you do with your surplus’ box on the expense forms,” he said.

Butler and Pack also propose the Electoral Commission publish the details of the direct donations as part of its political finance database, and proactively share their data with the House of Commons authorities to ensure candidates who become MPs are properly registering donations.

A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said: “While the Electoral Commission publishes information on candidate spending to aid transparency, we do not have the legal authority to publish donors’ personal data from candidate returns.

“We recognise that the current political finance framework could be strengthened further, and have recommended that our remit be extended to include candidates, which would simplify the regulatory process for candidates and improve transparency for voters.”

Environmental campaigners who took Shropshire Council to the High Court over the massive expansion of a chicken farm have managed to get planning permission overturned.

www.shropshirestar.com

River Action UK managed to get the approval of a 200,000-bird intensive poultry unit at Felton Butler, near Shrewsbury, in the River Severn catchment overturned after a two-day hearing at the High Court in Cardiff. 

It comes after activists dressed up in chicken costumes outside the court, holding placards with slogans including “kindly cluck off”, with bird excrement streaming into the river one of the big concerns.

Campaigners say the judgment marks a pivotal moment in the movement against factory farming in the UK and that planning authorities must assess the cumulative impacts of having multiple intensive agricultural developments in one river catchment before granting permission for another. 

They say councils must also consider how livestock production units dispose of the waste from treatment facilities downstream, including from anaerobic digestion plants.

“This ruling is a wake-up call,” said Emma Dearnaley, River Action’s head of legal. “For too long, councils like Shropshire have been rubber-stamping intensive livestock farms without fully considering the damage they do to the surrounding environment. There are already far too many chickens in areas like the Severn and our rivers are choking on chicken muck. Today, the court drew a line: no more megafarms without looking at the bigger picture.

“This landmark judgment means councils across the country must take the health of the wider area into account and look at the wider consequences when it comes to agricultural waste. It’s a big win for our rivers. The reckless spread of intensive agriculture must end now.”

The judicial review focused on Shropshire Council’s failure to lawfully assess the environmental impact of the development, including the widespread and damaging practice of spreading poultry manure or digestate on surrounding land.

Key issues upheld by the court included:

* Failure to assess cumulative impact: The council did not properly assess the reality of having multiple polluting poultry units in one area, especially in light of the high density of existing units in the Severn river catchment.

* Failure to assess the indirect environmental impacts of the development. The council failed to lawfully assess the impacts of spreading manure or digestate, as indirect effects of the development.

Dr Alison Caffyn, a campaigner from River Action UK, said: “There are nearly 65 chickens for every person in Shropshire and yet the council still thought we needed more. This ruling proves what we’ve said all along: the planning system has been putting our rivers at risk. This case is a win for communities across the UK who are standing up to the environmental degradation caused by industrial factory farming.”

 Ricardo Gama, solicitor at Leigh Day, the firm representing Dr Caffyn, said: “River Action and our client are obviously delighted about this result. 

“They and others have done a huge amount of painstaking work reviewing technical documents to bring to light the flaws in this planning application. 

“Dr Caffyn and River Action say that industrial agriculture has flown under the radar for too long, and it’s only through the tireless work of them and others that people are waking up to its massive environmental impacts. 

“A High Court judge has found that Shropshire Council failed to properly assess those impacts, particularly given their legal obligation to look at the impacts in the round alongside the huge number of other intensive poultry units in the Severn catchment. River Action hopes that this will serve as an example for other councils looking at similar applications.”

This judgment follows several recent challenges against industrial agriculture. In March, the High Court ruled in The National Farmers’ Union v Herefordshire Council that farming manure constitutes industrial waste in law, with significant implications for the sustainable management of manure-as-waste across the UK.

Earlier this year, a proposed megafarm in Methwold, Norfolk was rejected over environmental concerns including the need to take full climate impacts into account when deciding whether to grant permission and the need to properly manage waste to prevent air and water pollution.

Campaigners hope that today’s victory will be a turning point in agricultural planning and policy, putting environmental health at the heart of decisions, stopping the spread of unsustainable megafarms and delivering proper protection for rivers.

Work on a massive housing scheme on the outskirts of Newton Abbot has stopped following a major public protest and an urgent intervention from Teignbridge Council.

Protesters at Wolborough (image courtesy: Newton Says No)

Guy Henderson, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Developer Vistry Homes has downed tools on the ‘NA3’ site at Wolborough, where permission has been given for 1,200 new homes.

At the end of April officers from Teignbridge Council stepped in to halt the work amid claims that Vistry had gone beyond the limits of the permission granted.

Work had got under way on a large drainage pond, and campaigners said they feared the works would cause irreparable damage to nearby Wolborough Fen, an official Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

A national newspaper recently named the fen as one its 10 ‘jewels’ of English nature at risk from development. Protesters walked onto the site with placards to see the pond for themselves.

Teignbridge Council said work to create the drainage pond fell outside the approved areas and issued a temporary stop notice, which is due to expire next week.

Vistry said at the time that it would continue to work with the council to resolve any concerns and ensure that recommended planning procedures were followed.

However, ward councillors have today received an email from council officers telling them that Vistry has confirmed in writing that it will stop work on the whole site, apart from ‘mitigation’ work to reduce soil erosion and make sure silt does not end up in the fen during storms.

Talks are understood to be in progress between the council and the developers.

The email goes on: “It has been made clear to the developer that regular monitoring of the situation will be undertaken, and it has been stressed to the developer that any continuation of works on the site itself  – other than agreed interim mitigation/remediation works – would likely necessitate the council having to formally serve a stop notice and enforcement notice.”

The news was announced on social media by the Newton Says No group which has campaigned against the NA3 housing project in its current form.

One group member posted: “Well done everyone, it just shows what we can achieve if we stick together and stay strong.”

Cllr Richard Daws (Ind, Ambrook) said: “This reinforces what we have been saying the whole time, which is please be sure that if you do anything, it is not to the detriment of the SSSI.

“And without doubt the residents putting forward such a strong and cohesive case made it difficult for the developers and the council to ignore.”

Vistry Homes has been invited to comment on the latest development.