Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440
- 459)
TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER 1999
BARONESS BARBARA
YOUNG AND
DR DEREK
LANGSLOW
440. And check it against the regional biodiversity
indicator?
(Dr Langslow) Yes. It depends which level you are
working at. I am talking about the national level, the overview
one that you would apply to the more general policies but, as
it filters down, then you can do it at a more local level. That
is why we are keen to try and persuade regional bodies to have
separate indicators which they own and we will help them measure
them, but we want them to own and care about them.
Chairman
441. With regard to the consents that the Agency
is reviewing, what happens in the actual process? Do they then
say they are reviewing a particular consent and ask you what the
nature conservation implications of that consent are?
(Dr Langslow) There is a big fat document of guidance
which has been agreed between us about how these various consents
will be assessed. Essentially they are assessed as to whether
or not they have an impact on the nature conservation interest
which is defined under the Habitats Directive site. If there is
no problem then that is it. If there is a problem, and it goes
to stage two in a more detailed review, there is then a thorough
quality check and an interaction with the owners of the site to
see whether or not consent can be amended. Option three is that
there has to be compensatory and other processes to remove those
consents.
442. How quickly is the process progressing?
(Dr Langslow) It has just started and we hope to deal
with it within three years. As you can appreciate with the number
of them, it is an enormous task. There will be quite a number
of cases where I am sure there will be considerable argument as
to whether or not the particular consent really does have the
impact. There will be difficult matters of judgement.
443. Three years: does that mean each region
has a target to get so many done this year?
(Dr Langslow) I am not sure whether targets are broken
down regionally. We have certainly broken down the work regionally
and we have appointed staff, as have the Environment Agency, at
a regional level to manage and deal with the process. But I am
not sure whether they have actually set individual targets at
each regional level. I could find out for you if that would be
helpful.
Chairman: That would be very helpful.
Christine Butler
444. Just on that point, recently in my constituency,
and the particular place I am thinking of is Canvey Island, English
Nature have discovered both flora and fauna which are extremely
rare on a derelict site which is due for development. I am aware
of other sites within my constituency which have been left through
neglect and which may very well have near-extinct species. We
have got rare orchids, the shrill bee and one thing and another.
What powers do English Nature and yourselves have between you
to investigate such sites in terms of fulfilling the Biodiversity
Action Plan? These sites are in private ownership. If you have
strong suspicions or if the local authority have strong suspicions
or an individual does, how can they get these matters seen to
before the land is, for want of a better word, trashed?
(Dr Langslow) Let me try and respond to a number of
different angles. The first is that if they have really rare species,
which I would define as those which are listed in the United Kingdom
Biodiversity Action Plan, there is a very good chance they are
known about and the owners of those sites will often invite either
ourselves or one of the NGO bodies to look in. That may not be
the case on your specific site and I cannot answer for your site
without I take some advice afterwards. However, in general terms
there are plenty of owners who do invite people in so that one
can find out if they are rare species at a United Kingdom level.
There is then another level, of course, where perhaps locally
or regionally uncommon species are found. The natural world is
a great coloniser. We sometimes forget its ability to renew itself
and regenerate and go into places which to us may seem derelict
and rather bad news. They are often disturbed sites and there
are many species which like to colonise that kind of site, so
you have them going into them. You may well have locally important
species therefore. When it comes to using that land, I think you
are left with quite difficult policy decisions because you have,
on the one hand, a view within Government that brownfield sites
are the place to try and redevelop because many people regard
them as eyesores. On the other hand you have a developing wildlife
interest which many people locally will value. The trick is to
try and find ways of allowing some development while you maintain
the wildlife interest and incorporate that into your development
processes. In a sense that is the core of what sustainable development
would mean on such a site. I could give you an example of a site
away from your area if you wanted me to as to how that kind of
process works.
Christine Butler: What I want you to address
is the problem whereby local interest groups maintain that there
could very well be important species and we would like these investigated
before development. Are there powers to do that?
Chairman
445. The Agency have powers to go in and inspect,
do they not, but you do not?
(Dr Langslow) We do not have a power, even on an SSSI,
and that is one of the things that we hope your House will address
in this coming session.
Christine Butler
446. So you really need the powers because the
Agency do not have the staff to do these sorts of audits, do they?
(Dr Langslow) I am not sure that we have the staff
either to do audits in general across the whole of the landscape.
447. But where we have got particular sites
the Agency could go on that land, even if the owner was not too
keen on it because he wanted to develop, but if you said, "May
I have a look?", he may say, "Get lost".
(Dr Langslow) He might do, yes, but all I am saying
is that quite a lot of them do not say that. Some do, yes. Some
are concerned and that is where there are competing policy pressures
because on the one hand there is a pressure not to go out to the
greener areas round the edges of the towns and cities and Government
have set some very clear targets for brownfield development, and
pretty much any area of land that you leave alone will develop
a wildlife interest. That is the way the world works. It naturally
colonises, and whether or not it acquires a rare species may be
just an accident of where it is and the particular kinds of soils
and other conditions that you find on the site.
Mr Randall
448. What more would you like to see the Environment
Agency do to help you protect and manage SSSIs?
(Baroness Young) There are a number of areas that
we are actively working on. Clearly some of the things we have
already mentioned will have an impact on SSSIs, the AMP3, the
review of consents, because so many of the SSSIs are also international
sites. There are one or two areas where we are still struggling
a bit. We are all struggling a bit, quite frankly, and particularly
with non-point source pollution of water courses, and particularly
focused on agricultural run-off. The local Environment Agency
plans have really not taken a line on that because so much of
it is not within the Environment Agency's control, but nevertheless
they are a significant cause of pollution to SSSIs and we need
to do something soon, partly for the benefit of the SSSIs and
partly because the Water Framework Directive will require us to
do that for the future. That is one area that we would very much
like to see further work on with us and the Agency.
449. Are you happy with the water level management
plans that have been prepared by the Agency?
(Baroness Young) Dr Langslow talked about the water
level management plans. Water level management plans are a bit
like the curate's egg: they are good in parts. The issue about
how wet you get agricultural land is going to continue to be a
problem with water level management plans. Clearly we would like
to see some areas wetter than they were when they were first designated
because they were in an unsatisfactory condition and water level
management plans to some extent have described how the current
situation can be maintained rather than pressing forward. We have
now been working with the Agency to identify some water level
management plans where we would actively work to get some improvement
in the water level management.
450. Do you think the status and effects of
these plans are clear at the moment?
(Baroness Young) I think it is early days. We are
really in my view at the first round of plans. They have been
drawn up. There are issues about the objectives in them not being
sufficient in some cases, and there are issues right across the
board in terms of how actively they can be implemented partly
because of the resources necessary to implement them, partly because
of the fact that the structures that the Agency has available
to it to implement them are not there.
451. So you would not be particularly confident
that the Agency is going to be successful in implementing those
plans for the benefit of wildlife?
(Dr Langslow) It is not just the Agency's responsibility.
I think it is important to recognise that there is a very important
MAFF responsibility and the Agency is not out on its own. Unless
MAFF's policies and practices support it, and MAFF is prepared
to either persuade or coerce farmers that they will have to have
a higher water table on their land (and they often are wet grassland
sites or areas with ditch systems which are the important ones),
very often there is a direct conflict with what agricultural productivity
needs, what the farmer and landowner wants and what we and others
might like in terms of the water management for wildlife purposes.
I think the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of the day has
to sort out that kind of conflict.
452. Generally speaking you are a bit fearful
of the effects on wildlife?
(Dr Langslow) The water level management plans have
taken us up a little step but there is a whole staircase there
that we can go up. We need more of them implemented and we are
going to need resourcing through MAFF to do that and, as I was
pointing out, there are some very difficult individual issues
on the site. It is not just a matter of writing a plan and delivering
it. There are big impacts on the people there.
453. I should like to turn now to flood defence
work which we were talking about earlier. Would it be right for
me to say that you would agree with the criticism that the Agency
has not integrated conservation objectives into its flood defence
work?
(Dr Langslow) I would have said it is insufficient.
One of the reasons is the one that we mentioned earlier. That
regional flood defence committees are semi-autonomous and outside
the Agency management structure. Even if the Agency was very determined
to try and make sure that biodiversity was fully incorporated,
at the end of the day it does not have the executive authority.
We would argue that you need to change the responsibility of the
regional flood defence Committees and put it fully within the
Agency structure.
454. What would you change it to?
(Dr Langslow) I would change it to within the management
structure so that it had to obey the basic principles and philosophy
set out for the Environment Agency in its Act, and I think we
would then achieve a better solution.
455. What would you like to see the Agency doing
to help with your river restoration projects?
(Dr Langslow) Spend some more money, I suppose. We
touched on that earlier. We have had some very good trial projects
using LIFE money on two rivers which have been very successful
in co-operation with the Agency. The general way in which rivers
are managed now is hugely improved over the last decade. We do
not have the wholesale canalisation, we do not have massive bush-bashing
all along the river banks and all that kind of stuff that once
went on. There has been a big improvement and there are now good
ways, I think, of managing rivers. But doing major restorations
needs big money. You are talking about millions to do a few kilometres,
so it is very big money. We think it is worth spending because
there are benefits not just to wildlife but also huge people benefits.
If you look at something like the Skerne in Darlington, which
was one of the trial projects, it is a hugely beneficial project
to the local community as well as to the wildlife and the quality
of the river itself. At the end of the day it comes down to how
much money the Government, I suppose ultimately, is prepared to
spend.
456. The example you have just mentioned, is
it recreational benefit to the community?
(Dr Langslow) Informal recreation, yes, and an improvement
in the quality of their environment. Instead of having a rather
grubby thing with lots of litter and dumping in it, you have a
beautiful habitat which is much appreciated.
(Baroness Young) Could I return to your point about
flood defence and about the regional flood defence committees?
I think it is a very complicated set-up because the money for
defence of course flows from a variety of sources and the flood
defence committees have significant representation from stakeholders,
particularly farmers and local authorities. Ideally our solution
would be that that was absorbed into the management chain of the
Environment Agency. I could anticipate though that there might
be major problems with doing that. At the very least the regional
flood defence committees ought to have some sort of framework
of biodiversity objectives and targets laid for them so that they
have a requirement to deliver against that framework.
Chairman
457. Is that something that is going to be covered
in the Countryside Bill?
(Baroness Young) No, I do not think so.
Christine Butler
458. Why should the Environment Agency bid for
funds to carry out "a programme of habitat restoration"?
Do you not think that is your area of responsibility and that
you might be bidding for those funds?
(Dr Langslow) It could be either of us bidding for
them, but I think it is a matter that you want more than one agency
doing good nature conservation work. What we are looking for is
for the Agency to have a greater ability in the other projects
that it undertakes which are far more numerous than the ones we
undertake, particularly those in the freshwater environment, to
incorporate more restoration. At the moment their funds are quite
constrained to do that and there are the kinds of rules which
we referred to earlier on ring-fencing their budgets. I would
not want a situation where we were the only statutory agency funding
conservation work because there is a danger of a kind of conservation
ghetto. What we are after is good environmental practice, good
biodiversity benefits, that are incorporated into projects right
across the board. That is why we have such a strong partnership
with the Agency.
459. In relation to the work that the Environment
Agency already does regarding water levels and so on, they might
see this as more of a core function for them than specific funds
for habitat restoration. Do you not think it would be more sensible
if you were to receive direct grants yourselves for habitat restoration?
(Dr Langslow) I do not think so.
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