Natural Environment

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville for introducing this debate and setting out so eloquently the nature of a nature Bill, which the Liberal Democrats would like to introduce in the next Parliament. I look forward to working closely with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, when that Bill comes forward. I should remind the House of my registered interests as a councillor and as an active member of various access organisations.

I shall talk first about the “natural environment” part of the Motion, and particularly about access to the natural environment. In the nearly 15 years for which I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House, the number of occasions on which we as a House have contributed to the extension of people’s ability to access the natural environment has been a great pleasure to me. The very first Bill that I was really involved with was the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill in 2000, for which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was responsible in this House. That set a pattern that we have followed since.

However, there is now a real threat to vital countryside and rights of way services—the access services provided by local authorities—as a result of the cuts, many of them drastic, that local authorities are having to cope with. Many of them see the rights of way staff and services as not being part of their core service. This really began to bite last year, when some authorities were even proposing to close down the service altogether. I do not think that they can do that, because it is a statutory service, but many authorities are subjecting their services to cuts. We do not know yet what will be the effect of the current round of local authority budget making for 2015-16, but it seems that further cutbacks in many areas are inevitable.

Some of the more flexible, and perhaps enlightened, authorities have been able to make a link with the new health and well-being boards and their public health functions, and use a certain amount of public health money for the promotion and support of active outdoor recreation. Clearly, that is to be welcomed. But the pressures are everywhere. In my own local authority of Pendle in Lancashire, we have one of the densest networks of public footpaths in the country, which are vital to tourism, local recreation and the health of the local population. Because we have been able to maintain an agency service where the district council carries out the rights of way service on behalf of the county council, with subsidy from the county council but topped up by the district council, we have the highest standard of service in the county and our paths are in the best condition of any in the county. But the county council, like all other local authorities, has been under pressure and put forward a proposal to stop the agency and significantly reduce the service. We had some fairly vigorous and interesting discussions and I am pleased to say that we came to a compromise. We have been able to fight off the idea that because our footpaths are in the best condition of any in the county we do not need to do much to them for the next few years—until, presumably, they get back to the mediocre standard of other areas.

This is the kind of debate that is happening on so many services in local government at the moment, and the rights of way service is not in any way immune. I want to ask the Minister a question, which I am sure he will not be able to answer today, but perhaps he can dig out what information the Government have and write to me and other Members. What impact have the cuts already had on rights of way and countryside access services throughout England? Do the Government know what the situation is so far, to provide a baseline from which to go forward?

The second area I want to talk about is referred to in my noble friend’s Motion as “protecting green spaces”. I particularly want to talk about urban green spaces. The promotion of new urban green spaces is something for which the Liberal Democrats, in particular, have been pressing for a number of years. The proposal for a new designation under the planning system first appeared in the Liberal Democrat manifesto at the last general election. That led to a number of references to urban green spaces in the coalition agreement, a copy of which I have with me. It is an historic document that no one seems to pay much attention to any more, which is an interesting lesson for the future. Coalition agreements at the beginning of a five-year Parliament are regarded as being extremely important for a while, fairly important for two or three years, and then forgotten.

I have a copy of the agreement, which is still on various websites, including the government website. Under the heading, “Environment, food and rural affairs”, the coalition agreement states:

“We will introduce measures to protect wildlife and promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitats and restore biodiversity”.

Under the section on “Communities and local government”, it says:

“We will maintain the Green Belt, Sites of Special Scientific Interest … and other environmental protections, and create a new designation—similar to SSSIs—to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities”.

The results of this appear in paragraph 76 of the National Planning Policy Framework, which is a document that people pay rather more attention to nowadays than they do to the coalition agreement. It states:

“Local communities through local and neighbourhood plans should be able to identify for special protection green areas of particular importance to them. By designating land as Local Green Space local communities will be able to rule out new development other than in very special circumstances. Identifying land as Local Green Space should therefore be consistent with the local planning of sustainable development and complement investment in sufficient homes, jobs and other essential services. Local Green Spaces should only be designated when a plan is prepared or reviewed, and be capable of enduring beyond the end of the plan period”.

It was clearly intended that these new local green spaces should be an important part of the planning system.

I have another question which the Minister will not be able to answer today, but perhaps the Government can tell us what information they have. To what extent is this actually happening in all the local plans that local authorities have been producing and taking to inspection and adoption within the past two or three years? I have a sense that this has been a bit of a damp squib in many cases and that local authorities have not really grasped this new ability to, in effect, declare new parkland in parts of their areas, particularly their urban areas. This is something that our party will want to continue to stress and to press for and perhaps give greater prominence to in future. I have run out of time so I will say no more.