'the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth'

Day 71 #365DaysWild

As incredible as this sounds, the government proposes to change the law to allow developers to further pollute our rivers.

The same rivers that are now open sewers thanks to the lack of political will to stop this happening.

My letter to Mark Spencer MP

Dear Mr Spencer,

Like the majority of the nation I now dread to hear what calamitous mis-management this government will inflict on us next.

Your government is now proposing a new wording to the draft Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB) which aims to update planning rules in England and threatens rivers, lakes and coasts. The changes would require local Councils to ignore the pollution that development would cause.

This will mean even more pollutants entering our rivers and other habitats, more risks of damage to vulnerable wild places, and even more wildlife threatened with extinction.

In doing so it will:

• Go against the 2019 manifesto the Government was voted in on, which stated the UK would have 'the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth' and pledged to "make ours the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it"
• Undermine the UK Government’s legally binding commitment to halt species decline by 2030, set out in the Environment Act in England in November 2022
• Ignore the Global Biodiversity Framework signed at COP15 in December, which committed the UK to a range of biodiversity targets, including a pledge to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030

The independent Office of Environmental Protection (OEP), which was set up in 2021 to advise Ministers says of the proposals:

"We state that the proposed changes would demonstrably reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in existing environmental law, and that the Government has not adequately explained how, alongside such weakening of environmental law, new policy measures will ensure it still meets its objectives for water quality and protected site condition."  

The environmental vandalism that your government is engaged in is beyond shameful.

You must vote against it.

Yours sincerely

Rob Carlyle

Constituent