It was a momentous night and the 2019 election has produced a decisive result. Brexit with all its ramifications will proceed. The next Queen’s speech will come in the next few days (Thursday) – watch out for the Environment Bill & Fisheries Bill in particular. Pity to lose two strong environmentalists in Mary Creagh who […]

Read More

Setting out how regulatory bodies can co-ordinate the separate processes for coastal development consents in England. The coastal concordat sets out the separate processes for consenting coastal developments in England. This revised version replaces the original published on 11 November 2013. It supports decision-making between Local Authorities and those regulators who work in the marine […]

Read More

Defra:  ‘ENV09 – England biodiversity indicators A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services, biodiversity 2020 indicators: 2019 assessment. In December 2019, this dataset was updated in order to correct an error in indicator 13 and to reflect the availability of new data for indicators 2b, 4c and 19. The revised dataset supersedes the earlier […]

Read More

A new paper from jean Luc Solandt and co-workers Managing marine protected areas in Europe: moving from ‘feature-based’ to ‘whole-site’ management of sites JLS, MCS ‘Defra has just announced that the effective ‘Fisheries Management in MPAs’ Implementation Group (that emerged from the ‘Revised Approach’) is to be stopped, and replaced with ‘bilateral meetings’. This lessens […]

Read More

Consultation details Defra ‘As part of the UK government’s commitment to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it, an independent review of Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) – which represent the upper end of environmental protection – was publicly launched on the 8 June 2019. The 6 month review, led by ex-fisheries Minister Richard […]

Read More

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Theresa Villiers ‘The government will today (Tuesday 15 October) introduce a landmark Bill to Parliament to tackle the biggest environmental priorities of our time, signalling a historic step change in the way we protect and enhance our precious natural environment. The transformative Environment Bill will help […]

Read More

This article appeared in New Civil Engineer (19 Sep)  The water industry should not fear a no-deal Brexit, a senior Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) figure has claimed. Following revelations of the details of Operation Yellowhammer, the codename used by the UK Treasury for cross-government civil contingency planning for the possibility of a […]

Read More