The New Local Enterprise Partnerships

Memorandum submitted by the Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to this inquiry. The Trust is the UK's leading woodland conservation charity. We have three aims: to enable the creation of more native woods and places rich in trees; to protect native woods, trees and their wildlife for the future; to inspire everyone to enjoy and value woods and trees. We own over 1,000 sites and have 300,000 members and supporters.

The functions of the new Local Enterprise Partnerships and ensuring value for money

1. Ensuring value for money will be a central objective for the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). The Trust believes that creating new native woods and planting trees is not a luxury. Instead tree planting is an essential action in developing green infrastructure that can deliver economic benefits by mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, reducing flood risk and improving water quality, aiding productive agriculture, halting wildlife loss, enhancing public health and shaping places where people want to live, work and spend their leisure time. From an economic stand point it should be noted that the timber industry is estimated to employ about 55,000 people in Great Britain.

Woodland Trust, Making Woodland Count (2009).

Woodland creation provides highly cost-effective and achievable abatement of GHG emissions when compared with potential abatement options across other sectors. The Committee on Climate Change considered that abatement costing less than £100 per tonne of CO2 was cost-effective. All the woodland creation options evaluated here met this criterion including a range of broadleaved woodlands. The two most cost-effective options were conifer plantations and rapidly growing energy crops, but mixed woodlands managed for multiple objectives can also deliver abatement at less than £25 per tonne CO2.

Combating climate change a role of UK forests, p. ix.

2. Woodland creation can also bring a range of other benefits. The Mersey Forest project showed that for every £1 invested in woods and trees there was a return of £10.

The Mersey Forest, The Economic Contribution of the Mersey Forest’s Objective One-Funded Investments (October 2009).

3. The Coalition government needs to provide long term stability and certainty to the private and charitable sectors in order to aid investment decisions and therefore create an atmosphere in which achieving value for money becomes a realisable goal. At present this certainty does not exist. The Trust is deeply concerned at the press coverage from the seminar between business leaders and Local Authorities as it suggested that the LEPs may assume planning functions.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Business Leaders and Local Authorities gather to discuss Local Enterprise Partnerships (Departmental Press Release, 28 July 2010).

4. Understandably LEPs will come under pressure to secure private sector growth and as such are expected to be led by prominent members of the business community. However, if these bodies are destined to enact decisions that affect social and environmental aspirations they should incorporate expertise from these sectors. Without this type of inclusive partnership there is a risk of marginalising the environmental agenda at a time when there is widespread recognition that the environment and prosperity are not in competition but intertwined and the Coalition government rightly aspires to be the ‘greenest government ever’ . In the foreword to the consultation on the Natural Environment White Paper, the Defra Secretary Caroline Spelman, rightly points out that ‘our natural environment has a broader national value. It underpins our economic prosperity, our food security, our health, our ability to adapt to a changing climate and to reduce the greenhouse gases which cause this change’, and highlights that ‘degradation of our planet’s ecosystems is costing us €50 billion each year – a figure that could rise to the equivalent of 7% of global GDP by 2050.’

Defra, An invitation to shape the Nature of England, p.2.

5. It should also be remembered that charities are often sizeable employers in their own right and help government deliver on targets linked to public policy. For example, the Trust employs over 300 members of staff and engages with the private sector to help achieve its charitable aims. As an organisation with notable commercial experience we would expect access to the LEPs as a forum where we can discuss how our environmental and social aims may aid business development.

The Regional Growth Fund, and funding arrangements under the LEP system

6. The Trust has a vision of a UK rich in native woods and trees enjoyed and valued by everyone. At present, despite all the images of a green and pleasant land, the UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe with an average of only 11.8% cover compared to the European figure of 44%.

Forestry Commission, Forestry Statistics (2009).

7. Research in the East Midlands has shown that the value of the contribution made by trees and woodlands to the region is over £300 million per annum. Of this £255m is estimated to be the value of economic activities such as leisure and tourism which utilise or benefit from the woodland environment and the value to society of indirect or ’non market’ goods. These include the public health benefits of accessible open space, the impact on property values of attractive landscapes and the social value of woodland.

Forestry Commission, Space 4 Trees: the Regional Forestry Framework (2005), p.5.

Government proposals for ensuring co-ordination of roles between different LEPs

8. It is generally accepted that the Regional Spatial Strategies were far from infallible. However, whilst not perfect, the process did help organise planning at a regional and sub-regional level and may reasonably be assumed to have assisted individual local authorities in their efforts to work co-operatively with other arms of national and local government and across local authority borders. The Trust is concerned that LEPs may be too small to co-ordinate environmental policy at the strategic level that often brings the greatest benefits.

9. Certain policy areas such as the environment naturally cut across local authority boundaries and so there needs to be mechanisms in place that facilitate co-operation and the implementation of policy, both within and outside of individual boundaries. There is, however, renewed confusion as the demise of the Local Area Agreements means that there is no obvious medium through which co-operation can be assured. It should also be noted that there is a danger that much commendable policy on issues such as green infrastructure may be lost due to the demise of the Regional Spatial Strategies.

10. The Trust has concerns that whilst individual local authorities may adopt environmental policies embedded within the Local Development Frameworks and Core Strategies, these targets may be undermined by the singular economic focus of the LEPs. Should the LEPs assume planning powers it will be essential that their remit is far wider than economic development. Without this there is a risk that the prominent environmental aspirations of the Coalition may be lost when these partnerships seek to implement their policies on the ground. For this reason alone it appears advisable that planning powers are kept separate from the LEPs.

Arrangements for co-ordinating regional economic strategy

11. Any economic strategy should engage business and charitable organisations whose expertise both in their own right and in partnership working will aid the delivery of policy. For example the Trust employs more than 300 members of staff and, as well as being a significant employer in its own right, has a wealth of experience at engaging private, charitable and public sector organisations. Last year our MOREwoods initiative enabled the creation of 210 hectares of new native woodland across 160 sites.

Woodland Trust, Morewoods: http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/plant-your-own-wood/morewoods/Pages/freewoods.aspx

Structure and accountability of LEPs

12. It is critical that the structure and accountability of the LEPs fit within the Coalition’s wider plans. Local authorities should be encouraged to ensure that LEPs match other informal sub-regional groupings as this will avoid confusion. However, LEPs should not receive planning powers as this contradicts the spirit of localism and the Coalition's commitments to ‘return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils’ and ‘radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of places in which their inhabitants live’.

HM Government, The Coalition: our programme for government, p.11.

The legislative framework and timetable for converting RDAs to LEPs, the transitional arrangements, and the arrangements for residual spending and liability of RDAs

13. N/A

Means of procuring funding from outside bodies (including EU funding) under the new arrangements

14. N/A

13 August 2010