During the week, Dame Glenys Stacey, chair of the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), penned a letter to the Secretaries of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, expressing the organisation’s concerns surrounding the relaxation of nutrient neutrality rules by Government.
Stacey said that proposed changes would reduce the environmental protection provided for in existing law and set back the protection provisions already in place.
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ThÂerese Coffey rejected the OEP’s warnings – stating that the proposed reform package would in fact improve the condition of the habitat sites in question.
Coffey said that the upcoming changes in law would allow for new housing to be developed but would also pursue nature improvement.
By implementing the changes, she claimed that Government would provide a new and effective approach to reducing wastewater nutrient pollution.
The Government aims to deliver on its promise to deliver more housing stock, relaxing the existing nutrient neutrality rules which currently delay the building of new housing developments in protected areas.
The letter from the chair of the OEP, Dame Glenys Stacey, can be viewed here:
