Forestry: Independent Panel Report

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

I am very happy to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans in his very clear exposé of the close links between flooding and forestry and woodlands, and I agree with everything that he said. However, one way of mitigating flood risk is by trees in catchment areas fixing soil and diminishing run-off, whether they are part of the public or the private forest estate. A great strength of the independent panel’s report is that it does not erect a conceptual iron curtain between the two spheres in its powerful recommendations, rather it links the public and the private estates. I know that that is welcomed by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon.

These recommendations are far-sighted stuff, as one would expect from anything chaired by Bishop James—a man of great spirituality, huge insight and equally great intellectual bandwidth, which has enabled him to range, as he has in recent years, over everything from helping victims in Hillsborough seek some kind of solace to his great report on woodlands and forests with his colleagues. The recommendations say clearly that England’s woods and forests should be revalued for all that they provide, from recreation via clean air and water to wildlife habitats and flood reduction. That was prescient stuff when the then Lord Bishop of Liverpool wrote it with his colleagues back in 2012. Living in Somerset I recognise that it was indeed very prescient—we have much flooding but some of the lowest acreage of woodland in southern England. Both the polders that are the levels in Somerset and the few patches of woodland that we have are manmade. There is no ancient forest of any sort at all. What is there is in specimen trees, coppices and shelter belts.

As I am sure both right reverend Prelates would recognise, from every stance, planting any tree is an act of faith. Few of us live long enough to see a sapling in magnificent maturity in future years. However, all trees play as vital a role in water as in carbon capture—and again the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans recognised that point. They also play a great role in and around housing, as in open fields. That is why I applaud the conclusion of the report, at page 58, where it calls for planning policy and building practice to:

“Ensure woodland creation, tree planting and maintenance is part of the green space plan for … housing development”.

This is especially so where such housing is being constructed on steeply sloping land which is naturally prone to water run-off before any concrete is poured or asphalt is laid.

Let me give one such specific example which is currently under construction at New Barns Farm on the edge of Wincanton in Somerset. Incidentally, this is not a piece of housing development that is in my backyard in any way; I have no interest to declare here. More than 250 homes are to be built. I recognise that we need such homes on greenfield sites when all the local brownfield land has gone, and I support the policy. The site is on a hilltop with very steep slopes going down to the River Cale, a small stream that after a few miles across the Blackmore Vale becomes a tributary of the River Stour in Dorset, which itself has been subject since Christmas to a number of red danger to life signs because of massive flooding. When the site was first developed, it was excellently landscaped by a local developer, the Abbey Manor Group of Yeovil. Again I have no interest to declare because I do not know the company. Before the first houses were even started, the company ensured that good hedges and fencing were put in, and quite a wide shelter belt was planted at the top of the slope. It was sited exactly where it should be. Everything was maturing nicely before the site was sold on to a publicly listed company called Bovis Homes. My noble friend Lord Eden of Winton referred to the need for corporations to pay attention to this kind of thing. Since the site was sold on, I am afraid that there has been a spot of what one can only call environmental vandalism. Part of the shelter belt has been cut into, trees have been cut down and failing trees have not been replaced. Trees that were leaning have been left until they fall over. Gardens for the newly built houses have been encouraged to go into the shelter belt, which has led to more tree cutting.

Over the past sodden days we have had a lot of celebrity visitors coming to Somerset for a spot of grief tourism and photocalls, where people point vacantly at things while the cameras click. My ad hoc survey suggests that green wellington boots have mostly been sported, although we did enjoy the wonderfully bizarre sight of Mr Nigel Farage appearing in the Somerset Levels wearing chest waders and a jaunty cap. It must have been some sort of fashion statement while he posed for his photographs. I wonder whether the chairman of Bovis Homes, Mr Ian Tyler, and his chief executive officer, Mr David Ritchie, might put on their gumboots and come and see what their company is doing to the landscape.

What has been happening will exacerbate rather than help to control the run-off of water in this area of Somerset in the future. The behaviour of this company is bad for its business and bad for its relationship with the local authority, South Somerset District Council. I am broad-minded: it is Liberal but it is quite a good council in terms of planning matters. It has been having a bad time because it was given unfulfilled undertakings by Bovis Homes to replant the trees and maintain the woodland. That has not happened for the past three years. This is very bad for the image of Bovis Homes in terms of meeting its corporate social responsibilities for the environment. If only the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, was free of her Front Bench duties, I would recommend the all-male board of Bovis Homes to hire her instantly as a non-executive director to sort out its gross failures. It is certainly very bad for water run-off and flood risk.

I am talking about what may be only a few dozen trees, but as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans has just said, a few dozen trees here and there mean that, over time, those trees will make an integrated contribution to mitigating floodwater run-off. The whole building industry urgently needs to revisit its role and responsibilities in these critical issues. I do not know what the situation looks like in the diocese of Worcester, which I know has quite a lot of trees and has had quite a lot of flooding. I look forward to hearing what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester has to say about it, associating myself if I may with the best wishes of we web-footed ones in Somerset.