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20-11-2007, 10:27 AM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: West Molesey, Surrey
Posts: 1,648
| |  There goes the countryside
Years of nature protection could be put on hold or reversed if proposed cuts of 15-30% to the budget for conserving England's most beautiful places and wildlife are pushed through in the next few weeks.
Proposals seen by the Guardian show that the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is proposing to slash the budget of Natural England, its statutory independent nature advisers.
The organisation was set up one year ago by Defra to protect wildlife, maintain nature reserves, and improve the state of Britain's most important natural places.
It is understood that Natural England's £51m budget for new conservation work would be reduced by 15% this year with deeper cuts expected later. The organisation is also being forced by the Treasury to repay the £16m spent setting it up and to meet 2% across the board efficiency cuts
One option being considered by Defra is to cut:
• £4m from improving Britain's most important sites of sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs). These are already in poor condition and the government is certain to not fulfil its election pledges if it cuts the budget;
• £2m making access to the countryside easier for ethnic minorities and others. This is considered vital to make the countryside accessible to all;
• £2m to improve and maintain areas designated as being of "outstanding natural beauty";
• £2m to enhance national nature reserves. These are in danger of being neglected;
• £700,000 on scientific research.
In addition, programmes to conserve the habitats of some Britain's most endangered "flagship" species would be cancelled. These might include the Dormouse, the stone curlew, the Otter, rare orchids and other birds and mammals.
If the cuts go ahead it could set back conservation many years, say environmentalists.
"When money gets tight, it's always the environment and biodiversity in particular that suffers. Natural England was set up by this government and now it looks as if it is being strangled," said Mark Avery, the director of conservation at the RSPB.
"It would seriously undermine protection of the most important and cherished places and wildlife in England just at the time when the value of the environment is being recognised for the benefits it brings to health and the economy", said a government source.
Natural England has a nominal budget of more than £450m but this is almost entirely ringfenced with payments to farmers and landowners. Any cuts imposed by Defra would have to have to come from the £51m the organisation has to spend on new work.
Defra itself has been given a below-inflation increase of 1.4% in its £3.8bn budget over the next three years as part of the Treasury's comprehensive spending review. But more than £200m of this increase has been earmarked for improved flood defences after this year wet weather, and much of the rest has been set aside to help councils recycle more waste to meet EU targets.
The department has also had to pick up the unexpected costs of the latest foot and mouth and blue tongue disease outbreaks and has not fully recovered from the £200m cuts imposed by the Treasury last year following late farm payments.
"No final decisions on the corporate spending review budget allocation have yet been made. Protecting and enhancing the environment of course remains an absolutely key priority for Defra," a spokeswoman for the department said yesterday.  |
26-11-2007, 08:18 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Lancashire
Posts: 1,575
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
What utterly depressing and infuriating news.
What sort of a land has this become?! 
Regards, Chris |
26-11-2007, 08:55 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Lancashire
Posts: 3,203
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Terrible! The government isn't doing enough to preserve the environment.
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26-11-2007, 09:42 PM
|  | Active Member | | Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: near Cambridge
Posts: 1,106
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
This is criminal It seems that our conservation charities (eg. Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, National Trust, etc) are having to bear more and more of the financial burden of conservation in Britain.
Jeff |
26-11-2007, 09:55 PM
|  | Active Member | | Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 82
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
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26-11-2007, 10:07 PM
| | Officer of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 511
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisJB  What utterly depressing and infuriating news.
What sort of a land has this become?!
Regards, Chris | A new labour one. |
26-11-2007, 10:32 PM
|  | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Little village called Chedworth
Posts: 5,023
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
hmmm yes depressing....
I still don't know why they spent all that money re-branding, changing the name in all the legislation etc..... Can't for the life of me work out what the benefit was.......
some business graduates have a lot to answer for |
26-11-2007, 11:12 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Bewdley
Posts: 3,682
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
I wonder if it's anything to do with Browns New Housing developement scheme?
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27-11-2007, 12:12 AM
| | Active Member | | Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: 'Oop North
Posts: 79
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
More than flipping likely =[ |
27-11-2007, 09:30 AM
| | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Little village called Chedworth
Posts: 5,023
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jez I wonder if it's anything to do with Browns New Housing developement scheme? | Well I can only hope that this will reassure a little- that a lot of housing proposals are in the hands of people like me... So they will at least proceed with guidance and best practice with impacts removed or reduced as much as possible.
I can't avoid the land-take or promise that no wildlife will be displaced but I can promise that I will do the best I can for everything - and developments needen't all be bad - take a look at centreparks sites they all have higher biodiversity post development than they had before.....
Perhaps not as good a solution as having less people (of any creed or colour)thereby no need for more housing but no one seems to have broached that possibility.......... yet...... |
27-11-2007, 11:37 AM
|  | Wild Member | | Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: South Staffordshire
Posts: 133
| | Re: There goes the countryside
Well i hope something gets done to save our wild areas .What a depressing post to read.Think we have more than enough houses and factorys and land in inner city areas that could be utilised..
What a sad place it will be in the uk with the land dissapearing it makes you feel so angry and helpless.Shame on the developers. 
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27-11-2007, 11:46 AM
| | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Little village called Chedworth
Posts: 5,023
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by wildflower Well i hope something gets done to save our wild areas .What a depressing post to read.Think we have more than enough houses and factorys and land in inner city areas that could be utilised..
What a sad place it will be in the uk with the land dissapearing it makes you feel so angry and helpless.Shame on the developers. | inner city land areas can be very valuable to wildlife, as the city has built up around them these wastegrounds are often the last refuge to lose these is no better than losing fields sometimes its actually worse.... |
27-11-2007, 02:15 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 2,398
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
I agree. I live in an inner city area, where I know of several open spaces. To some people these areas are as close to nature as thewy can get, and as such they need to be precerved. I know 'brownfield land' is useful to nature, quite often these areas have only been in existance to them for a while - the creatures/birds can then relocate (unless they are rare, then further work needs to be done for preservation) and perhaps these can take the pressure off long-standing woods and open spaces that have long been home to wildlife?
People say we need to go green - energy efficiency, lower our greenhouse gas emmisions, etc -
But how can we truly 'go green' whilst destroying wildlife and green spaces??? |
27-11-2007, 02:18 PM
| | Active Member | | Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: 'Oop North
Posts: 79
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
I fear that if the Conserveratives come into power we will fall into a new era full of troubles.... And that could include loosing much of the natural world =[ |
27-11-2007, 02:29 PM
| | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Little village called Chedworth
Posts: 5,023
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Green I agree. I live in an inner city area, where I know of several open spaces. To some people these areas are as close to nature as thewy can get, and as such they need to be precerved. I know 'brownfield land' is useful to nature, quite often these areas have only been in existance to them for a while - the creatures/birds can then relocate (unless they are rare, then further work needs to be done for preservation) and perhaps these can take the pressure off long-standing woods and open spaces that have long been home to wildlife?
People say we need to go green - energy efficiency, lower our greenhouse gas emmisions, etc -
But how can we truly 'go green' whilst destroying wildlife and green spaces??? | Removal of brownfield often menas total removal of a varieyt of species from the locality as there is no other land....
Green sites - at least those that are actually bright green, neat and tidy and intensively farmed are sometimes - (even often in my experiance) a bit rubbish for wildlife......
If I had may way, we'd keep a lot of the brownfield sites, broken buildings, rusting machinery and all....... |
27-11-2007, 02:52 PM
| | Active Member | | Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Birmingham, UK
Posts: 47
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Also check this: Quote:
The UK population could almost double over the coming 75 years, according to official government projections.
The previously unpublished figures suggest the British population could hit almost 110m in 2081, if immigration fertility and longevity rates are high.
| BBC NEWS | UK | UK population may double by 2081
Imagine all the towns and cities in the UK as they are now - times 2 = Very little countryside left |
27-11-2007, 03:33 PM
| | Active Member | | Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: As the name suggests, in the Chilterns
Posts: 97
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
I’ll try not to bang on about this for too long but, if you want to save wildlife from development you have to do it at the Local Development Framework (LDF) level or above i.e. Regional Spatial Strategy. It’s at LDF level that site allocation is done and where you can set the ground rules for the developers to follow. If the planning guidance for your area is written correctly to save wildlife by protecting all the relevant wildlife sites and corridors then the developers can’t build on them. PPS9 ( http://www.communities.gov.uk/docume...ing/pdf/147408) is the government's policy on how planners should deal with nature conservation and development and you should comment on your local plan when it’s being revised. If you don’t then it’s difficult to complain about individual developer’s plans when they are only following the rules set out by the Council which you could have commented on when they were being written.
Further, the Development Plans dictate what a developer is expected to include in a development e.g. no net loss of biodiversity, improved environmental corridors to adjacent sites etc. Knowing this he can buy the land at a price that allows him to make a profit and keep the wildlife. The land value is determined by what the developer can build on it and if the wildlife compensation is not included in his financial calculations before he buys the land then getting ecological compensation is virtually impossible. A recent example of good practice was Leeds City Council Supplementary Planning Guidance on Biodiversity and the Waterfront ( http://www.leeds.gov.uk/files/Intern...700c5756d9.pdf ) which describes to developers what they need to consider when building close to rivers and therefore they can decide how much to pay for land zoned for development adjacent to rivers.
Dealing with the social issue of nature conservation which has crept into the thread above, the Greater London Authority has been consulting on their Access to Nature Conservation document ( http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/strat...-to-nature.pdf ) This states that wildlife areas provided by developers need to meet certain ecological criteria before they can be counted. While the ecological standard required (locally called of ‘Borough Importance’) is not a high hurdle, at least it tells the developer what he has to achieve, so he can factor that into his development and hence the land price.
Fighting for ecological mitigation on individual sites must carry on as few planners know anything about nature conservation, however it’s really a last resort and is a result of failures within the planning system and generally leads to compromises and a slow degradation of the local ecology through cumulative impacts.
As for the ecological value, rather than social value of brownfield sites (which vary from demolished buildings with a couple of Buddleia to Rainham marshes SSSI) , I’ve often had this debate with planners and wildlife trusts. Yes, they can be ecologically rich especially for invertebrates and specialist plants. The problem is that they are generally used by pioneer species which are out competed as the site undergoes ecological succession. Therefore, you either need to manage the site to keep it disturbed (which costs money) or you need a supply of new brownfield sites which species can move to as the old sites become vegetated or developed. In large urban areas this shouldn’t be a big problem as there are always new derelict areas being produced, although high land prices in some cities can cause problems as sites are developed very quickly. However, in general there are normally enough derelict sites about that only particularly important brownfield sites justify conservation protection.
I’ve gone on for too long so I’ll stop there.
Cheers, Chris |
27-11-2007, 04:15 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: West Molesey, Surrey
Posts: 1,648
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tazni I fear that if the Conserveratives come into power we will fall into a new era full of troubles.... And that could include loosing much of the natural world =[ | I would say that the Tories have a much better track record in the environment than Labour have.
Cheers,
Adam |
27-11-2007, 11:02 PM
| | Active Member | | Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: 'Oop North
Posts: 79
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
When the tories came into power england fell apart.. |
29-11-2007, 08:50 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Lancashire
Posts: 1,575
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Oooh getting political (rubs hands with glee!).
Seriously though, I have to say I have been a Labour voter all my life, but after the past ten years, never again. This country has lost it's character and identity. We have become an overpopulated, sorry isle and until over-population is tackled robustly, then our beloved countryside and the wildlife with it will be whipped from under our feet like a rug.
Regards, Chris
Last edited by ChrisJB; 29-11-2007 at 08:51 PM.
Reason: missed the 'l' in wildlife!
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29-11-2007, 09:00 PM
| | Officer of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 511
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tazni When the tories came into power england fell apart.. | Everyone loves a comedian !! |
29-11-2007, 09:43 PM
|  | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Chilterns
Posts: 8,091
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
it doesnt really matter whos in power - we have the best politicians money can buy ... and they are all bought and paid for  look at the dodgy donations - the exact same thing that happened with the tories
at the end of the day building, quarrying, arable monoculture, etc is all big business and they have the dosh to lobby for their desires effectively - the opposing environmental and country folk largely dont and thus they get rolled over ... money talks ....
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29-11-2007, 10:05 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Lancashire
Posts: 1,575
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
Quote:
Originally Posted by eeyore it doesnt really matter whos in power - we have the best politicians money can buy ... and they are all bought and paid for look at the dodgy donations - the exact same thing that happened with the tories
at the end of the day building, quarrying, arable monoculture, etc is all big business and they have the dosh to lobby for their desires effectively - the opposing environmental and country folk largely dont and thus they get rolled over ... money talks .... | Rightly or wrongly, currently it matters to me a great deal. The current situation does my blood pressure no favours. I've had to giveover watching the news, because the urges to utterly obliterate the television at times are becoming rather disturbing!
Regards, Chris |
29-11-2007, 10:11 PM
| | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Chilterns
Posts: 8,091
| | | Re: There goes the countryside
i know what you mean but i wouldnt hold your breath for it being any better under a tory or libdem govt - its a shame our green party isnt more of a practical proposition - if they were more like the danish green party i'd think they have some hope but as it is imo they are just a bad joke.
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30-11-2007, 09:28 AM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Lancashire
Posts: 1,575
| | | Re: There goes th | |
