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So, no grant award three days into a financial year and a series of financial cuts year on year. Surely that is no way to invest in some of our most treasured
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3.15 pm
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth: My Lords, like others here, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for initiating this debate. I shall speak about the Isle of Wight, the South Downs National Park and then three issues that relate to this debate: the place of the churches, which relates to it directly, and then transport and new housing development. I shall be brief.
A considerable portion of the Isle of Wight is made up of AONBs. It is easy, if you know the island, to demarcate where they are: you just take certain bits out where lots of people live, and the rest is a beautiful and delightful AONB. Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of taking part in a conference in the yacht haven in Cowes organised by the Island Strategic Partnership to promote the eco-island project. The speakers included John Owen, the chairman of the strategic partnership, David Pugh, the leader of the council, Bill Wakeham, the vice-chancellor of Southampton University, Sir Ghillean Prance and others.
In my view the eco-island project is the most ambitious and laudable that the island has undertaken in its history and deserves a great deal of support, for a number of reasons. It highlights the relationship between AONBs, other initiatives and areas near at hand. We cannot divide the world up into different bits; we are all related. The dream of the eco-island project is that the island will be self-sustaining by the year 2020, with, one hopes, the lowest carbon imprint in England and becoming a world-renowned eco-island. I shall give two examples. First, Vestas Blades promotes electricity and is the largest producer of blades in the UK. Secondly, there is the project, which I have mentioned on a previous occasion, to use manure from 500 cows—spelt without an “e” this time—to fuel buses. The eco-island project is about education, health and safety for the whole island and the AONBs play an important part in this.
The symbiosis between the eco-island project and AONBs is unique. There are so many AONBs and they are part of the project. If the project goes ahead, there will be a chance to test out ideas that could be used elsewhere, which makes it even more important. I am not talking just about Europe, but the rest of the world. Therefore my question is about money. I understand that AONB funding by the Government has recently been cut. I should like gently to prod the Minister on that point because the eco-island project, which is related to the AONB initiatives, would attract funding from elsewhere. Everything is related to everything else.
The noble Lord, Lord Renton, obviously knows much more about the South Downs national park than I do. However, noble Lords may care to be reminded of the fact that it starts just east of Winchester and ends just west of Eastbourne. It is a very large area, but there is a proposed reduction, about which I understand there is a certain amount of division of
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I turn now to three other issues. Your Lordships will not be surprised if I speak on behalf of the churches. I am sure that I speak on behalf of AONBs elsewhere in the country. They are a vital part of every AONB. One example is the often visited church at Brighstone on the Isle of Wight. The South Downs includes that wonderful church at Idsworth which is so much looked at as a landmark by commuters on the train—and of course by others, as well.
If I may be forgiven for blowing the ecclesiastical trumpet, the churches in this country are in better condition than they every have been in their history, without any doubt at all. If I may sing an ecclesiastical mantra, I am not sure what the VAT situation is at the moment. I think it has been gently looked at, but certainly until recently, the churches paid more in VAT on church repairs than they received from English Heritage. That is a surprising fact which is much ignored, or not even known about. In the diocese of Portsmouth we are assessing how we use our buildings and how they can be more friendly to visitors and tourists. We are looking at this project, not just in the beauty spots but in the more brutalist areas of our cities.
I now move on to transport and the Hindhead tunnel which is a controversial saga that has been going on for a long time. One of the reasons for the length of time it has taken to get the thing going has been money rather than local and national discussion. However, the local and national discussion has slowed it up. Can the Minister say—this is not directly related to the debate, but abuts it—whether there are ways in which these processes can be speeded up? One of the consequences of the tunnel is that the local AONB office has received, I hope, a promise—although it is yet to be confirmed—of funding for project officers to assist with landscaping issues on Hindhead common and in the regeneration of Hindhead. I have known of this for 20 years because before I came to Portsmouth I lived in Guildford and I have watched the area become more depressingly carbonised with traffic fumes, making the place less attractive as we drive through it. If we are going to have a national park or a number of AONBs, people will still have to move around the country. I am sure that the quality of landscaping planned for Hindhead is one of the results of AONBs and the national park project near it.
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The question of housing developments brings in the South East Plan, which I suspect is behind strong feelings about the threatened reduction in size of the South Downs national park. I recognise fully the need for affordable housing. When I look around my own patch, as I am sure will my colleagues theirs, I see where housing can be built and where it perhaps should not be built. However, it needs to be built.
I know that the Planning Bill is producing a new system of infrastructure whereby the Secretary of State does not have the final say, which may or may not be a mixed blessing. Near where I live, in the development of Whiteley, a rather soulless shopping centre is going to be destroyed—fortunately, as far as many people are concerned—and rebuilt. There is an example of where developers and planners get it wrong.
I shall not name names, but the sense that I get from conversations with people around the diocese is that, where there is to be a new housing development, the local authorities are very much—perhaps too much—in the hands of the developers, who because of their experience and their money hold the strings of power. There is an area which needs to be checked.
I repeat what I said earlier. We are looking at AONBs—the Isle of Wight and the national park of the South Downs—in relation to many other issues. This debate is timely, because, in the past few months, the world’s population of city dwellers has moved from being in a minority to being in a majority. We are not quite sure when the change was made, but it is probably about now. Perhaps that is why we turned our clocks forward an hour last Sunday.
That makes me think of the Bible, which begins in a garden of lost innocence, where responsibility is avoided—surprise, surprise: that is very much a local and national government issue. We have to play God, whether it is in planting trees or initiating stem cell research. But it ends in a city, which is landscaped, lavishly irrigated and a place of space, peace and justice. It is not quite an AONB, but perhaps an aspiration in that direction. It is a place of play.
In conclusion, I pick up the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, about the Lake District. He will know that in the north-west of England and Yorkshire, “lake” is a Norse dialect word for “play”. “Legoland” is a “playland”, which my Viking forebears brought to this land with their culture. Here we have a vision of a community that is at ease with itself, where urban and rural live and work together and where we can play. AONBs are a place of play for children of all ages.
3.29 pm
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, like others, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Renton for giving us the opportunity to consider AONBs. He has given us opportunities in the past. I remember well his introducing the 1999 AONB Bill, which was effectively put on the statute book by Part 4 of the CROW Act. My noble friend played a large part in getting through those measures, which went a small way to alleviating some of the problems which have already been touched on and which AONBs have to address—at least when one compares them to other designations.
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I, too, have an interest to declare. I live and farm in an AONB in east Hampshire, much of which, incidentally, is in the Diocese of Portsmouth. So I am delighted to follow the right reverend Prelate, who takes a great interest in the rural part of his diocese.
It is inevitable that since 1949 unfavourable comparisons have been made between AONBs and national parks, as they have in today’s debate. If you were to be driven into an unknown part of the countryside and told that the area was designated, you would be hard pressed to know whether you were in a national park or an AONB, or indeed in some other form of designation or some area not designated at all. The truth of the matter is that the English countryside, of which we are so proud, has a sort of seamless continuity. The fact that we have quite different legislation for different forms of designation and different funding arrangements simply accentuates the inconsistency of our approach to managing those parts of our countryside which we value. This was made inevitable by the very nature of that legislation in 1949 and those who framed the legislation very carefully made it clear that the administrative structure for national parks was to be completely different to the administrative structure for AONBs with completely different funding arrangements. Although the planning powers were similar in some respects, the planning administration was very different. The Minister will hear others, I am sure, talk about resources which are clearly different.
Having recognised the problems that AONBs have had to address, it is only fair to point out the minor improvements that resulted from the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 in which my noble friend played an important part. There are now statutory management plans. There is government guidance on a number of measures, particularly on how organisations whose activities impact on protected areas should consider their obligations in AONBs. We have heard about Defra’s sustainable development fund which very often gears funding of considerable proportions from elsewhere. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act allowed for the conservation board which had already been rolled out in Sussex as a precursor or trial. Conservation boards have now been rolled out elsewhere, as my noble friend Lord Plumb told us, not least in the Cotswolds. But these inherent problems remain. Most people understand the nature of a national park. You know when you have driven into a national park because it is usually evidenced; the identity of national parks is well understood, appreciated and valued. However, it is not always clear when you have entered an AONB, or even if you live in an AONB in some cases. There is no linkage, or inadequate linkage, with conservation bodies and biodiversity action plans. Local authorities have biodiversity action plans but they operate rather removed from the AONB structure. We have heard how important conservation of the built heritage is in AONBs but again this happens almost as a separate exercise, not inevitably connected to the activities of the AONB, although it will of course get a mention in the management plan.
Education and the creation of new jobs and appropriate skills within the protected landscape are
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Planning powers are, without doubt, important. They should help to prevent unsuitable development, although many would complain that they have not always done so. In a sense it is the stick rather than the carrot, but equally important to the stick is the carrot. If there is to be a champion for each AONB, if there are to be organisations like the conservation boards and the management boards about which we have heard today, they need to be able to champion new markets for the products of this protected landscape. They need to champion ways in which education and tourism that is compatible with these protected landscapes can be promoted. They need to champion better conservation practices than those in the generality of the wider countryside.
Yet we have heard from my noble friend Lord Plumb just how large these organisations must be, taking in as they do a wide range of local authorities and other interests. I forget just how many people my noble friend said sat on his committee, but it seemed a rather unwieldy organisation. I think the Secretary of State appointed 15 members. The climate change committee, which the Minister successfully steered through this House, has only eight members, with perhaps two or three to come. That suggests a rather more appropriate management structure for championing these areas of outstanding natural beauty without trying to reconcile a large number of bureaucracies, local authorities, NGOs and other interest groups. That is not to say that they should not be represented. I am sure there are other ways of ensuring that they can participate in dialogue and discussion, but ultimately there must be someone who champions areas of outstanding natural beauty and who owns the problem.
The problem, as I said before, is to ensure that all who have an interest in these areas of outstanding natural beauty, whether because they live there, work there or visit there, recognise that to be within the area of outstanding natural beauty could give them an advantage denied to others. We are a long way from that concept at the moment. Realistically, many people who try to earn their living in these protected areas feel that they have to jump over more hurdles than others do in order to get planning permission for developments, even if it might be seen to be in the long-term interests of the economy.
My own area is heavily wooded. Some 25 per cent of it is wooded, which is much more than the Cotswolds AONB. As noble Lords may know, the south-east of England is the most heavily wooded area. A lot of these woodlands are quite frankly derelict. In the
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To get this going, however, you need to put together an awful lot of players in the field. You need planners, district heating schemes and the public procurement of schools, hospitals, government offices and the like. If they commit themselves to CHP plants, people will go back into the woods to manage them and produce by-products—we are not talking about timber—on a large scale for use as biomass. That is precisely what parts of our areas of outstanding natural beauty need. They need markets, not subsidies—they do not need more money from Defra. They simply need long-term strategic thinking, with a board that understands the objective precisely, and plans that can be implemented over years, not months. In a modest way, this is precisely the sort of long-term strategic direction that we talked about in our debates on the Climate Change Bill. There should be one for each AONB. It should not be an organisation in which every local authority and interest group has to be represented. It must be an organisation that can actually deliver; that can stand up and say, “You are now living in an AONB. We are going to make you proud of it. We will give you opportunities which others would love to participate in”. When we have made an AONB something that people can buy into and be proud of and do not see as just another planning obstacle, we will no longer talk of areas of outstanding natural beauty, as we are in this debate today, as the Cinderellas of the protected designation systems.
3.39 pm
Lord Bridges: My Lords, I live in an AONB—the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB—and as I shall illustrate, my experience suggests that insufficient attention is being paid to this designation by the various offshoots of government, including at times, I regret to say, central government. By contrast, our county council in Suffolk has done its best to help us with its limited resources.
I have one success to record and one serious current anxiety. The success concerns the attempted sale, 10 years ago, of a former military airbase, Bentwaters, within the AONB, not far from Woodbridge in Suffolk. During the Second World War the Royal Air Force built this airfield, intending it for use by fighter aircraft in defending us against attack by enemy bombers. It was not used for long and, with the arrival of the Cold War, was taken over by the American air force, the USAF, which had a second runway nearby, at what is now designated RAF Woodbridge. The Americans deployed a light jet bomber, the A-11, and its Cold War mission was to be available to attack Russian tanks should they start rolling across central Europe. That makes one realise how far we have moved on since then.
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Of course, this never happened, but the aircraft from these bases were used with devastating effect to destroy the Iraqi tanks as they withdrew from Kuwait in 1991. The A-11s never came back to Suffolk, but returned, as the Americans say, Stateside, and the Bentwaters airfield became redundant. Inevitably, the Bentwaters runway had just been resurfaced to the highest standards, at a cost of several million pounds. Understandably, perhaps, the Ministry of Defence then put the airfield on the market, hoping that it could be sold profitably as a commercial airport, for the benefit of their always-stretched budget. A private deal was done with the local district council to permit such a development, with a suspicion locally that some of the MoD profits might eventually accrue to the district council. The device was called a planning brief—a suspect document. My recollection is that little or no mention was made in this documentation of the fact that the airfield was in the AONB.
At this point, my wife, who was a member of the county branch of the CPRE in Suffolk and active in planning matters, became involved. Her strongest argument—surely right—was that a commercial airport in the AONB should be out of the question by definition. She was helped by the fact that she had been brought up locally and spent some time between school and proceeding to Cambridge as a classical scholar working as a clerk on Orford Ness during the Second World War, where numerous important military experiments, including radar, were taking place. Her approach was to remind the public authorities of the AONB designation, of which most seemed quite unaware, and to speak always in a quiet and reasoned manner, with strong arguments. This was exactly the right style to convince local opinion and it was, in the Latin phrase,
It also helped her case that the former Royal Air Force base at Horsham St Faith in Norwich was being developed by a number of airlines, notably KLM, as a commercial airport, and Stansted was being planned. Finally, our local Member of Parliament, Mr John Gummer, who was always very clear-headed about these environmental issues, informed a meeting, which he convened one Sunday evening, that the enthusiasts for the airport had lost their case: there was no commercial support for it. The scheme was dropped, but there had been no considerable—or indeed any—visible support from central government in defence of the AONB in this argument.
More recently we have been facing a different threat, which concerns me very much because of the Government’s decision to stop spending modest sums—a small contribution—to help to repair the walls of our tidal river, and their willingness to abandon large tracts of the coastline in the AONB to the sea, as I shall explain. I live 16 feet above sea level in the coastal village of Orford. I have 1.5 acres of orchard and garden and am not engaged in agriculture. The key to the problem is our tidal river, variously called the Alde and, in its lower reaches, the Ore, which flows from the west, in Snape Maltings, to the east, until reaching the coast at Aldeburgh. It then turns 90 degrees to the south to run parallel with the
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There are various critical points. The first, just south of Aldeburgh, is where the sea broke through in the last serious floods in 1953 and did much damage. There is a fine Martello Tower, one of the largest in the series and a listed building. This place is called Slaughden. The river then continues 15 miles or so southwards to Shingle Street where it enters the North Sea. The river wall on the land side has been steadily maintained and the drained marshland behind it produces valuable food crops and is home to flocks of cattle and sheep. Your Lordships may care to be reminded that in most years we in this country are a net exporter of wheat and barley malt.
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