Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
THURSDAY 13 MAY 2004
DR TOM
TEW, MR
MARTIN FOX,
MS ALISON
FLOWERS AND
MS JOHANNA
OLDAKER
Q20 Sue Doughty: I was going to ask
you about your processes for looking after those SSSIs, but clearly
you are doing everything you can to avoid taking them on. Do you
think you are likely to use this more in the future? I appreciate
this is a measure of last resort.
Dr Tew: We would hope not.
Q21 Sue Doughty: It sounds as if
you are very comfortable with the activities you are doing. We
know from earlier written evidence that SSSIs are occupied by
a variety of different private individuals, corporations, local
authorities or government departments. Who are the worst offenders?
In other words, who do you have the major problems with? What
are you doing to get them into line out of that wide range of
owners?
Dr Tew: If I may answer this question
generically and then specifically. We have provided evidence to
the Committee which shows the condition of SSSIs under the ownership
of various different bodies ranging from MOD to local authorities
to the Forestry Commission and because we have a very clear idea
of the condition of SSSIs we are able to say what percentage of
the sites in any one particular ownership is meeting or not meeting
the targets. When you look through those figures, you see that
the worst managers in percentage terms appear to be the water
companies and Ministry of Defence, but I would like to qualify
that remark strongly because that is actually reflecting the pattern
of ownership. There are several big issues affecting SSSIs, such
as climate change and coastal squeeze, or historic atmospheric
pollution, or agricultural incentives to encourage overgrazing,
which are actually outside the control of the landowners and so
it is unfair to tarnish the reputation of those major landowners
with the inaction to get the estate into good condition. In actual
fact I would say that, via the DEFRA working groups on SSSIs,
all of the major landowners now are working very positively and
very well with us and with DEFRA to get the condition of sites
back into good condition. That is my generic answer. My specific
answer in terms of wildlife crime is that the Section 28G bodies,
which is broadly public bodies and includes local planning authorities,
we have had to take enforcement action against those. We have
sent eight enforcement letters to Section 28G bodies to remind
them of their statutory obligations towards SSSIs, and in every
case that has done the job, so we have not prosecuted any.
Q22 Sue Doughty: Thank you. You mentioned
specifically MOD and the water companies. I ought to declare an
interest, having worked for a water company at one stage promoting
good care of their land assets to take account of conservation
and biodiversity, but with the MOD and the water companies are
you getting a better dialogue with them? You mentioned you also
talk to people about being responsible. How is it going?
Dr Tew: It is going well. I have
to say that the PSA target which focuses all our attention on
the condition of SSSIs is proving a very effective lever in increasing
dialogue. The attitude of these other public bodies to SSSIs has
undergone a quantum improvement in the last two or three years
and we greatly welcome that.
Q23 Sue Doughty: We have this issue
though about the ones who are not doing so much. Are there any
particular factors, such as they have a large amount of land?
You mentioned that they are not responsible for the way the land
is being used at any one time necessarily, but on the area of
land or the fact that they have had it in ownership for a long
time or a short time, is there anything in there which seems to
be an aspect?
Dr Tew: Both of those things certainly
figure. I think the key for me would be that these major landowners,
public or private, tend not to be owning the land because they
like owning land that is of high wildlife value; they are owning
it for other reasons. They are owning it to drive tanks around
on or to protect water catchments. The key is to make them aware
of their obligations in conserving these nationally important
wildlife sites. For me, the key is education and awareness and
we are working hard in that respect.
Q24 Sue Doughty: We have talked about
the sense of commission but what about the sense of omission and
neglect. Do you have to deal with neglect or is it abuse to the
area?
Dr Tew: Neglect or absence of
management is a much bigger issue than damage, deliberate or otherwise,
but the new powers under CROW allow us to deal with that. There
is a process of management scheme, management notice and then
management enforcement that is very helpful. We are very pleased
with those new powers under CROW. That for us was a major benefit
from the new Act.
Q25 Chairman: On that issue, you
feel you are nibbling away at the fringes of what is a very much
bigger problem. I was struck by the fact that Plant Life, for
example, reckon that in the last 50 years we have lost 98% of
our wildflower meadows. Most of that has not been wilfully destroyed
by people who do not like plants. It is not only neglect, is it?
It is intensification of agriculture, urbanisation—all those
issues. Our inquiry, it seems to me, is focused on a tiny part
of what is a very much bigger problem.
Dr Tew: Tiny but important. Remember
that the sites themselves only represent 7% of the land area of
the country, so we are only talking about a small area, and, for
sure, there are bigger issues in a wider environment. If you are
talking about farmland birds or lowland meadows, then, yes, you
do have to start looking at wider policy measures, particularly
agro-environment measures. But, in terms of the sites, before
CROW we were nibbling and now we are biting.
Q26 Chairman: You are sound-biting!
Dr Tew: The condition of SSSIs
has gone from perhaps 55% favourable three years ago and we are
now 63%. That 8% shift I think has been the biggest forward shift
in the condition of our nationally important sites for a generation.
Q27 Mrs Clark: I would like to start
off by saying how very pleasant it is to see you back with us
so soon.
Mr Tew: Thank you.
Q28 Mrs Clark: I do not think I have
sat through a session here for a long time when we have had witnesses
who seem to be so thoroughly in agreement with what the Government
is doing. I am glad you are now biting because of CROW and also
because you actually praised the PSA target—which is what
I would like to start off with. It states that 95% of SSSI land
area should be in what it calls "favourable" condition.
As an ex-English teacher that word seems a bit woolly to me. What
does it mean? What is "favourable"?
Dr Tew: I fear I do not have time
to run through the scientific definition of favourable, but there
is a major point to be made here. Favourable can just be that
the site is in good condition, in "good nick", so that
if a biologist walks on to the site he sees the birds and the
plants and the animals there that say to him, "This site
is in good condition." We have vast technical guidance as
to what this actually means and our conservation officers are
looking at the percentage of their ground cover, the height of
the heather, the number of important invertebrates, so there is
a long list of technical guidance about what "good nick"
means.
Q29 Mrs Clark: How are we doing against
that definition and that target?
Dr Tew: At the moment 63%. As
of 1 May, exactly 63.0%.
Q30 Mrs Clark: Are you relatively
satisfied with that?
Dr Tew: Last financial year, we
started at 58.9%; the target was to hit 62% and we hit 62.9%.
Q31 Mrs Clark: Earlier on the Chairman
was talking about enforcement officers and saying that it surely
was not feasible for English Nature to have loads and loads, bands,
armies of enforcement officers going up and down the country.
I do not necessarily take that view. I take the view that perhaps
there should be more rather than less. Perhaps you would like
to tell us how many you actually do have, the precise number nationwide,
then going on to the sort of preparation and training that they
are getting and the remit of their task in terms of scale and
area. Is it in fact easy to get people to do this job?
Dr Tew: We do not have a job description
of local enforcement officer. We have conservation officers which
are based in our area teams and work across the country and we
have our field staff, our site managers, who work across our national
nature reserves. I confess I do not have those figures off the
cuff but I estimate perhaps 250 staff across the country doing
those jobs.
Q32 Mrs Clark: Not very many.
Dr Tew: Not very many. Only a
small part of their job is to spot wildlife crime and damage to
sites and there are 4,000 SSSIs covering over one million hectares.
That means that for some of those sites we will only visit once
every four or perhaps six years. Six years is a minimum, because
we have an internal target whereby we will visit a site every
six years, and for the majority of sites we visit much more frequently,
but you are right if you are alluding to the fact that noticing
and reporting damage may be an issue. That is why we feel strongly
that we need to work in partnership both with the police and with
other voluntary bodies.
Q33 Mrs Clark: We have talked about
CROW and have praised the strengthening of the powers. Are there
any barriers to you using the enhanced powers fully?
Dr Tew: It is good legislation
but they say no legislation is perfect. There are a few items
that we would like to raise where we feel, both under part 1 and
part 2, the powers could be improved.
Q34 Mrs Clark: In what sort of way?
Ms Oldaker: Under part 1, which
deals with species issues, where we are not the enforcement body,
from the powers point of view and what the legislation actually
says we are broadly happy with what the legislation contains,
but one area that perhaps needs attention is dealing with non-native
species, because the release of non-native, invasive species is
recognised as a major threat to biodiversity and the legislation
needs to be amended to tackle that issue. Obviously legislation
is only one of the different ways that we are going to tackle
that issue.
Q35 Chairman: Let us be clear about
non-native species. We are talking about flora rather than fauna,
are we, or both?
Ms Oldaker: We are talking about
both, but the legislation is particularly weak in relation to
flora. It is an offence already to release many fauna that are
non-native but the legislation is particularly lacking in relation
to plants and needs to be looked at in relation to non-natives.
That is something of which DEFRA are already aware. They have
had a review of non-native issues but the legislation is one of
the issues that needs addressing.
Dr Tew: American mink pushing
out water voles; American signal crayfish pushing out our native
species. There are good animal examples.
Q36 Chairman: Alien bluebells.
Dr Tew: Yes, Spanish bluebells.
Q37 Chairman: It gets a bit dodgy,
this conversation!
Mr Fox: Could I take a step back
to when we were talking about enforcement officers because it
would be remiss of me to skip over the point. We do have
an enforcement officer and an assistant enforcement officer who
sit within the Site Protection Unit, so in that context we have
two officers who deal with the process of taking forward enforcement
cases. Moving on to part 2, we have mentioned some of these things
before: stopping people in vehicles within SSSIs to request their
names and addresses we have touched on and it would be very handy
for us, for example, to be able to formally speak to a contractor
and say, "Hello. What is your name? What are you doing here?
Who is employing you?" That is one key issue for us. Actually
to be able to require restoration following damage to an SSSI
without having to take a court case. As we say, we are reliant
upon voluntary restoration. It would be nice if we had something
like the local planning authorities have in relation to historic
buildings, to be able to serve a notice saying, "Please restore
this site because you have done this." There would obviously
be possible powers of appeal that came out of that, but that is
something to address at a later date. Also, if we look at preventing
activities being carried out which are simply a breach of the
legislation: if somebody is about to commence something or they
have just started to do work on a site, we would look at that
as being akin to a local authority stop notice in relation to
planning. It would also help us if we could demand statements
from people. That is perhaps a more tricky issue because there
is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act that says we cannot do
that but it might help us if we could speak to people and say,
"We require you to give us a statement because you are the
contractor on this site, who has employed you? How long have you
been here?" Also, in relation to being able to require information
of persons having an interest in SSSIs, sometimes land for various
reasons is not registered with the land registry. It might have
been in the family for a long time and it has passed through various
generations, although a new occupier might be on the site, and
it might there be handy, if we go through all the routes of doing
the land registry search and are unable to find out who the owner
or occupier is, possibly to be able to affix a notice to ask if
they would come forward and identify themselves. These points
we make in the evidence. I was comforted to see that the Environment
Agency also made similar points to ours within the Environmental
Justice Project which came out previously.
Dr Tew: I do not think these are
harsher laws, Chairman; I think they are better laws and give
us streamlined, more effective, quicker powers.
Q38 Mrs Clark: I was just thinking
that at some point in the future we ought to do an inquiry into
the operation of the CROW Act because you have given us a lot
of ground to think about here. In some of your evidence you go
into detail about the circumstances in which an occupier or indeed
owner of an SSSI could actually take the case up to the Secretary
of State against you, against a decision you have come down in
favour of. Is this frequent? In what circumstances do you think
the Secretary of State might support the owner or occupier rather
than yourself?
Ms Flowers: That would be in relation
to the notice of consent regime in Section 28 of the Wildlife
and Countryside Act. There is a route of appeal there.
Q39 Mrs Clark: Could you tell us
a bit about it.
Ms Flowers: It is a formal notice
and consent mechanism. Owners and occupiers are legally required
to give us notice before they carry out activities on SSSIs. We
now have the enhanced power through the CROW Act to be able to
refuse consent, condition the consent, or give a straightforward
consent if we are happy with their proposals. If we refuse the
consent or we condition the consent, there is a right of appeal
and that appeal can be heard by the Secretary of State. There
is also a route of appeal in relation to management notices that
we serve as well. I do not have the figures on the number of appeals
that we have had through on the notices consents, but I can say
on the management notices that as we have not served any we have
not had any appealed as yet.
Dr Tew: Once again, I think we
would view that as a failure on our part to communicate effectively
with the owner and occupier about the value of wildlife and the
reasons we would like it to be managed properly.
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