The NPPF saga is rumbling on – did the Government plan this?
And the party season rumbles on too. This week, it is the Conservatives but they are not living up to their name; well, Francis Maude isn’t as reported in the Independent on Sunday, as he considers any opposition to the NPPF as bollocks.
And it may be that the NPPF is ailing (get it? Ale…ing). OK. Enough of the bad puns as this is a serious blog but it has been reported (see here and here) that the Government are going to redraft the NPPF as a consequence of the vociferous opposition propogated by a wide range of stakeholders including the National Trust, RSPB, the IEEM and practioners (e.g. planners). I for one will be interested to read the updated/ amended/ rewritten edition of the NPPF. Will you?
And our friend George Osborne has been talking about the environment too in his speech to the Conservative faithful. In it he said
Now we know that a decade of environmental laws and regulations are piling costs on the energy bills of households and companies.
Now as an ecologist and a consultant, I am left wondering how the need to protect biodiversity (Section 40 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006) or the requirement to protect our European Protected Species (Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010) impacts my utility bill. Perhaps it has something to do with the cost of completing Vantage Point surveys and bat activity surveys for proposed wind farms? Or may be the Phase 1 habitat survey? Or mitigating against the relatively minor habitat loss?
He went on to say…
But Britain makes up less than 2% of the world’s carbon emissions to China and America’s 40%. We’re not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business. So let’s at the very least resolve that we’re going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe. That’s what I’ve insisted on in the recent carbon budget.
So it is nice to know that our Government is ambitious in its objectives. I wonder, as did Mark Avery, if they have the same objective for the NHS, Education and the London 2012 Olympics?
But taking a look at what Caroline Spelman said in her speech at the conference on Sunday reveals a contradictory message…
This is a Government prepared to act. And act in the interests of the long term. Nowhere is it more vital than for the environment. Our generation has a duty to restore it for the next. Our children, and theirs, depend on us getting it right. And what’s more, this government and this country should be leading by example.
and
A thriving, healthy natural environment provides us with fresh water, clean air, good food and much more. Think what it would cost to substitute what nature provides for free. If insects likes bees stopped pollinating – it would come at a cost of £430m each year to the economy. Costs that would quickly show up in higher food prices. If our wetlands no longer improved water quality – it would cost £1.5bn a year to replace that service. Again, a cost that would fall to us. So we all have a shared interested in protecting our natural environment.
Was George Osborne listening? And should developers care? Well, in my view, an inconsistent message not only reduces clarity, but reduces resolve, reduces determination, reduces confidence and reduces belief (heard similar words elsewhere?). Caroline Spelman is right when she says that a reduced environment will be costly in the long term and George Osborne is right when he says that…
…together we will move into the calmer, brighter seas beyond.
…but what lies beyond the horizon of this calmer, brighter sea? It’s in all our interest to have a sustainable economy, but a sustainable and strong environment too…where there are still the bees to pollinate the hops that go in to the dog’s bollocks (beer that is).
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