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Minutes:
The Chair announced that from 10 November 2022 Councillor Dan Ledger would be the Portfolio Holder Strategic Planning.
The Chair agreed for Councillor Denise Bickley to read a statement to support an environmental motion she wished to submit.
‘Our natural environment has to be at the forefront of public policy, to enable humans and our planet to thrive. Under the EU, environmental protection legislation was well thought-out and far-reaching, with 3 priority areas for action:
• To protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital
• To turn the Union in to a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy
• To safeguard the Union’s citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and wellbeing.
All very sensible, it would seem.
In the UK we have a 25 Year Environment Plan, which was intended to deliver a ‘Green Brexit’. This is a legally binding document, allegedly. It is again all very sensible, and was well received.
In 2018, a document still available on the Government’s website pledges that ‘A new Environmental Principles and Governance Bill will ensure environmental protections will not be weakened as we leave the EU.’
The then Environment Secretary Michael Gove developed the idea for the Environment Land Management Schemes (ELMS) that we have been counting on and planning towards. This encourages farmers to create space for vulnerable species as well as absorbing carbon to help the country reach its net zero targets. Pilot schemes have been hugely successful.
Fast forward to today – we have Jacob Rees-Mogg as Business Secretary, intent on cutting through ‘red-tape’ with his Brexit Freedoms Bill. This will result in all EU-derived laws being removed at the end of 2023 including 570 environmental regulations. No plans have been set out to retain or amend any of the regulations.
The ELMS plans also look like being scrapped and DEFRA are considering paying landowners a yearly set sum for each acre of land they own – a catastrophic mistake.
This is the biggest opportunity to fix our broken farming support system, to support nature, climate, and farmers who have invested so much already in improving their systems. Riverford farm for example, has invested money, time, and resources into this system, and it is working. They say ‘This shift in agricultural land management could create a farming landscape that is part of the solution, not part of the problem, and in doing so enable farmers to become justifiably respected and appreciated not only as producers of great British food, but also as custodians of our countryside for future generations. They can’t do this without a policy framework that supports this change.”
Michael Gove’s policy clearly states that we are 30-40 years away from the eradication of soil fertility. We can see this on our own doorstep; ask Cllr Kemp, with the exploitation of areas that are grown for maize, to feed anaerobic digestors. These areas are seeing total topsoil plunder, dustbowl effect, and serious flooding. The Chancellor’s recent ‘Mini Budget’ saw the launch of a new ‘Growth Plan’ confirming a new Planning and Infrastructure Bill which will ‘reduce unnecessary burdens’ to speed up the delivery of infrastructure. This includes ‘the burden of environmental assessments and reforming habitats and species regulations.’
Any halt or stalling to the progress of positive environmental protection must be immediately cancelled. Every major environmental charity and experts in their field have publicly criticised this and demanded that these plans be urgently reviewed, and environmental protection is put back at the heart of public policy.’
East Devon District Council should strongly disagree with the current government’s relaxing of environmental protection laws and adds our strong support to the requests from concerned groups and individuals that the environment, including protection of our biodiversity, marine and land ecosystems, farming and food security and our own health, is put at the heart of public policy.
It is requested that (under the urgent circumstances we find ourselves in):
1. EDDC’s Leader, with the agreement of Cabinet, issues a public statement denouncing plans to
a) Remove any EU environmental protection laws and stating that we support every environmental directive from the EU being written firmly into UK law urgently.
b) Discontinue the ELMS policy, stating that we fully support it and wish it to become enshrined in UK law and activated as soon as possible.
2. EDDC’s Leader, with the agreement of Cabinet, writes to DEFRA to add our support to:
a) adopting the 570 pieces of EU-derived law which they have the power to retain and adopt into our law
b) continuing with the ELMS policy that we wholeheartedly wish to see enshrined in UK law and activated as soon as possible.
3. EDDC’s Leader, with the agreement of Cabinet, contacts our MPs to strongly request they join us and back these sentiments and insist on proper debate and scrutiny to ensure that environment protection is at the heart of planning, growth and resource security, and reports back to Cabinet with their responses.
The Portfolio Holder Coast, Country and Environment agreed with Cllr Bickley’s proposal. In a statement he said;
‘The Environment, Biodiversity, in fact the whole green agenda in the last few weeks seems to have been wrapped up in this new slogan from our new Prime minister as the Great Anti-growth Coalition. This council is run by a Coalition, the Democratic Alliance, a coalition of councillors that want to see East Devon thrive and economy grow! But not to the detriment of losing our wonderful countryside. I can assure you, none of us are anti-growth. In fact, just look at what we have achieved in the last 4 years, we have achieved house building at record levels to comply to the Government required quota of over 950 a year, we have started work on Cranbrook’s long awaited town centre, shed blood sweat and tears on developing a new local plan, that will provide even more houses and employment, plus successes at the Science Park and employment sites at the West end. In fact, we are growing more than any other area in the South West.
This administration is also delivering on green issues too. Working with partners such as Clinton Devon on the Lower Otter or the Woodland Trust at Coombe Farm or the National Trust at Killerton new tree plantations and our award winning Clyst Valley Regional Park masterplan. We are also working on a project to provide the whole of Cranbrook with Green Energy. We are leading the way, with these fabulous green initiatives.
A lot of our new enterprises and businesses are in the green economy sector, the biggest growth area, which we support and nurture. Yes, we heavily support growth, but we put in the same amount of effort into protecting our environment, reducing our emissions, reducing our carbon footprint. Yes, you can be both green and support growth; we are already doing it here in East Devon.
I totally agree with the environmental lobby who are against the Government’s proposals to turn its back on protecting this fragile landscape and diminishing biodiversity, we can grow our economy, build the housing, look after our landscape and hit our climate Change Target all at the same time.’
Cabinet unanimously supported a letter be sent to the appropriate people supporting this request which the Chief Executive would do under delegated authority.