Environment
These regulations aim to promote sustainable development and protect the environment.
You can find all 278 regulations that relate to environment here [opens in new window].
For ease of commenting we have broken these regulations into the following seven areas:
We depend upon a healthy thriving environment for survival. It is a deeply complex system that cannot be isolated into parts and controlled. It is not valued or protected nearly enough already. We need farther reaching more comprehensive protection, not less.Comment Tags: environment
Our environment is vital to us, and now is a time it needs us more than ever. We need to strengthen our laws of protection; it’s ridiculous to scrap our existing ones. What we would gain is not even able to be mentioned in the same breath as what we would lose.Comment Tags: environment
I would scrap all laws. Then the true majority could enforce their wishes by direct action against principleless, money-grubbing, capitalist lowlife like the Tories. There would be no tiny minority stealing the wealth of the rest of the world. There would be an end to the now almost completed devastation of the planet for the sake of money and short-sighted, self-defeating, insane and evil greed. It will end soon in any case. The people guilty only by being deceived and coerced might as well try to avoid paying the price along with those truly responsible.
I would scrap it immediately. The very fact that you refer to all environmental legislation pejoratively as ‘red tape’ is a rather transparent attempt to sway public opinion in favour of scrapping it, but you have not made any attempt to demonstrate that there is any need to change the existing legislation. Do you have any actual evidence that the legislation is making life difficult for business? If so, please produce it. Do you have any evidence that the public at large are clamouring to be free of what you clearly consider to be pointless restrictions? If so, please produce it.
There is, on the other hand, a wealth of evidence that the legislation has preserved biodiversity, or at the very worst slowed the rate of decline – importantly, and this doesn’t seem to be something that you’ve even considered, it has also improved the quality of life of the citizens of the UK, both in giving them access to the natural world, and in reducing pollution, etc. You shouldn’t need telling, either, that much of this legislation has had a beneficial effect on the nation’s health. I would have thought that extra NHS spending would be the last thing you needed at the moment.
This whole Red Tape Challenge seems to be driven by nothing other than an ideologically-motivated belief in eliminating regulation wherever and whenever you find it. I suspect this is because deregulation is this government’s one idea for promoting growth – you really should try harder. Perhaps you could come up with a few examples of how well deregulation has worked in other areas? Banking, for example?
You cut this legislation at your own peril, but while I really don’t care about the extinction of any one of the UK’s political parties, I do care about a unique natural heritage that cannot be simply cast aside as though it were an inconvenience. If you really are the greenest government ever, you will recycle the paper wasted on these proposals immediately.
The environment plays a crucial role in all our lives whether one is aware or not. Nature provides fresh water, clean air, food and regulates our climate. We are part of it not apart from it. The current government would be extremely foolish to remove the environmental protections that have worked well over the last couple of decades. The quick fix of economic growth over environmental regulations is short sighted and ultimately futile, resulting in a loss in quality of life for all citizens.Comment Tags: biodiversity, environment, nature
That a government could even consider scrapping environmental protection makes an absolute mockery of the ‘greenest government ever’ claim. Your attitude is appallingly short-sighted. Biodiversity is not some sort of hindrance to be removed, it is something we are all a part of, something under extreme threat already, and something that – unlike this horrendous governement – can not be replaced.
To scrap it! It is vitally important to adequately protect our wildlife species and important wildlife sites, which are already being steadily eroded year on year. Look at the steady decrease in our bird and butterfly numbers and species, the increasing numbers of endangered species etc… we need to look at how to better protect our wildlife, urgently, certainly not even think about how to hasten its demise!
I think our environmental protection legislation is not “red tape” and by labelling it as such this government shows how little it cares. If anything our environmental laws need strengthening. We need a network of marine reserves to safeguard biodiversity in our seas, we need enhanced protection for fragile habitats on land from lowland heaths, wetlands and natural woodlands. More efforts to enforce laws on wildlife crime, a law on Vicarious Liability for the persecution of raptors and stiffer sentences for the criminals who break these laws.Comment Tags: Strengthen environmental laws
As I understand it you have included all 278 pieces of environmental legislation and regulations in your “Red Tape Challenge” – this seems to indicate that you are threatening to scrap some or all of these vital environmental protections and that you regard them as “mere bureaucracy”. They are NOT just “red tape” – they are vital protections for the natural environment, including some of our most sensitive sights, and some very important species.
I do not want our children and grand children to grow up in a country where we do not value biodiversity, where we think it is ok to destroy the habitats of some of our most treasured birds, animals, plant and insect life, and where we replace beautiful countryside and sea waters with concrete, airports and barren stretches of sea – and that is precisely what we risk creating if these protections are removed.
The Prime Minister claimed that this would be the “greenest government ever” – and others including Caroline Spelman and Richard Benyon have confirmed their commitment to this principle. If you continue to treat these important environmental laws and regulations as just “red tape” then that commitment will be worth nothing – it will merely have been “empty words”. I call upon you to take action now to remove these enironmental laws and regulations from your “Red Tape challenge”.Comment Tags: animals, birds, Climate Change Act, Marine Act, marine conservation, Wildlife & Countryside Act
I understand that as a nation we are under increasing economic pressure in a changing global economy. However it would be extremely short sighted to sacrifice environmental considerations for economic benefit in the short term when we rely on global environmental stability and productivity for a stable global economy in the long term.
Last year Caroline Spelman herself said that environmental preservation is essential for sustainably economic growth. To do away with legislation put in place to further this cause under the false flag of cutting out red tape would be a serious mistake which could well have much wider repercussions, in the natural world and through this in local and global industry and economics.
We must not underestimate the importance of environmental legislation; it is not just about preserving natural spaces and wildlife, it is about ensuring we have a healthy environment on which to build a healthy society and economy.Comment Tags: Environmental Legislation, nature, wildlife protection
I think it would be a mistake to do away with environmental legislation, labelling it mere ‘bureacracy’. There are a whole host of organisations who would be poised to profit from this relaxing of the rules safeguarding our nature, and they would have scant regard for the vital habitats and countrysdie which could potentially just disappear under a scramble of new developments. We are a first world country – we have a moral obligation to set a precedent for the developing world – how can we expect China and India to consider the environment as they progress if we are not prepared to ourselves?
The environment of this country and the wildlife it contains should be protected for numerous reasons, some economic, and that protection cannot be dismissed as mere bureaucracy. The legislation and regulations should remain intact.
I support any legislation that challenges the government to honour its commitments to biodiversity and nature conservation. I demand as a mother and woman who loves life and nature that these protective measures in legislation be upheld
I am really amazed by the idea of seeing all environmental legislation as just a cost on business. We all depend on biodiversity and the natural world – apart from its intrinsic value and beauty. Economic value of tourism linked to a flourishing environment too. We must keep our environmental protection.Comment Tags: biodiversity, environment
It is our view that Site Waste Management Plans Regulations should be repealed for four main reasons. 1) They do not work. They were supposed to reduce fly tipping. The evidence suggest that they have had no effect. This is hardly surprising as fly tippers already ignore a plethora of existing legislation. Any reduction in construction waste to landfill from construction that may have occurred is most likely to be the result of the industry having shrunk by 16%, not because of SWMPs 2) The vast majority of local authorities do not enforce them. This puts legally compliant traders at a commercial disadvantage to those who ignore the regulations. 3) They catch inappropriately small projects. SWMPs may well be of use to larger contractors on large sites but they are of debatable value on small sites dealing with small amounts of waste. 4) for SMEs SWMPs impose a significant additional bureaucratic burden.
The FMB has no problem with clients and contractors using SWMPs if that is what they want to do but this should be a commercial / CSR /policy decision not a legal compliance issue. The failure of these regulations is a perfect demonstration of why good intentions should not be written into law.Comment Tags: Site Waste Mangment Plans
Part 1 of the CROW Act 2000 is the fundmental basis of access to open country on foot and was only put on the statute book as a long campaign by representative of the nation’s walkers. It cannot be categorised as a bureaucratic imposition.Comment Tags: right to roam
The CRoWA should be kept and made even stronger, making more areas of the UK free to roam
Loosening protection is likely to destroy our Natural environment for NO GAIN. We need the farmland to lessen our dependence on imported food and the balance of payments deficit that arises from importing what we could grow ourselves.
There are at least 750,000 empty dwellings already built. Why hasn’t the price of houses come down?
The Local Authorities have been under orders to allow all developments since June 2010… Why hasn’t the building resumed on the housing that stopped in 2008? No money no growth regulations do not stop growth
The Local Authorities have been under orders to allow all developments since June 2010… Why hasn’t the building resumed on the housing that stopped in 2008? There are at least 750,000 empty dwellings already built. Why hasn’t the price of houses come down?Comment Tags: Regulations do not stop growth
Protection of the natural world is as important now as ever. Please, do not cut any protection for wildlife and biodiversity.Comment Tags: biodiversity, wildlife
I am very concerned about any proposed removal of protection for wildlife and biodiversity. Our existing legislation has only been arrived at after much work and effort over many years, and after exhaustive debate by all stakeholders to ensure that the balance of protection versus the needs of business and the economy is about right. It would therefore be inappropriate, as well as unnecessary, to remove this protection for reasons of short term expediency at a time when our wildlife is increasingly threatened by matters outside legislative control (such as global warming). Protection of wildlife and biodiversity requires long term security from threat of development and economic activity (including agriculture and fishing), and if anything protection measures need to be enhanced rather than reduced in order to redress some of the existing threats from incremental impacts.Comment Tags: wildlife