Nature is under threat
Letter to Robert Largan MP from BCA Trustees
Dear BCA Members
I am sending you a copy of an urgent letter that I have sent to our MP Robert Largan on behalf of BCA Trustees.
With all that has happened as a result of the mini budget last week, you might not be aware that the UK Government announced a number of measures that, if implemented, will have an extremely detrimental impact on our ability to protect and enhance wildlife in England. The measures include:
The creation of large "Investment Zones" in which planning and conservation regulations will be largely pushed aside to favour development (Derbyshire County Council has been named as one of 38 local authorities around the country where an Investment Zone could be established).
Using the Retained EU Law Bill to abolish the Habitats Regulations 1994 - the strongest wildlife legislation in the UK that protects the very best wildlife sites and habitats and the most threatened species
Putting on hold of the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) and potentially replacing it with old style area-based payments which have been proved to be highly ineffective - the government had been working on this new agri-envorionment incentive scheme with farmers, landowners and conservation bodies for many months and it was being held up as a world leading scheme.
These proposals have prompted an unprecedented level of objection from almost all of the national charities involved in nature conservation including The National Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, World Wide Fund for Nature, The Rivers Trust, Plantlife and The Woodland Trust, all of whom are urgently campaigning against these changes.
These proposed changes would make it much harder for BCA to object to or influence proposed developments that might threaten important wildlife sites or species in our area.
As a non-political organisation, we are not seeking to make any party political point here; rather we are standing up for the interests of the natural environment and its wildlife, which otherwise do not have a voice in these matters.
You may already have written to Robert Largan about this issue, but if you have not, Trustees would encourage you to consider doing so.
Please feel free to draw on our letter if that would be helpful.
You might like to see the press release from the CEO of the National Trust - see link below
Further detailed information can be obtained from the RSPB and WILDLIFE TRUSTS - see link below
Yours sincerely
Peter