19 Dec 2023
The first five Fisheries Management Plans have been published. The plans set out how the UK government aims to work with the fishing industry and other stakeholders to support the long-term future and sustainable management of the UK’s fish stocks. DEFRA states that these plans will help deliver the long-term economic viability of the UK’s […]
13 Dec 2023
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Barclay, has written to water companies asking them to improve maintenance programmes to ensure these are not a cause of storm overflow discharges. He highlights this is a legal requirement that water companies should already be delivering and states his plans to closely follow […]
05 Dec 2023
Defra has published a suite of guidance to support the (delayed) introduction of biodiversity net gain (BNG) becoming mandatory. They include: The statutory biodiversity metric tool and user guide The tool allows the calculation of biodiversity value for the purpose of BNG for major developments. The user guide has the information needed to use the statutory biodiversity […]
05 Dec 2023
96% of bathing waters in England have met minimum standards, with 90% of bathing waters in England being rated as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, continuing to show an overall boost in water quality over the last decade, Defra and the Environment Agency (EA) have announced. This compares with just 28% being rated as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ […]
29 Nov 2023
DEFRA’s budget for day-to-day spending will fall from £4.7bn in 2022/23 to £4.2bn in 2024/25 when inflation is taken into account, amounting to a real terms budget cut of £500m, according to analysis by the Liberal Democrats. Campaigners have previously said the budget is already cut to the bone, with huge reductions made during the […]
22 Nov 2023
Fish Legal and Pickering Fishery Association have won a landmark judicial review in the High Court against the Government and the Environment Agency over its river improvement plans. The Court ruled that the Government, and the Environment Agency, had failed in their mandatory legal duties to review, update and put in place measures to restore […]
15 Nov 2023
Suffolk Coastal MP Therese Coffey has quit as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week, she said that “now is the right time to step back from government”. Former insurance company solicitor Steve Barclay is the new Environment Secretary, becoming the fourth postholder […]
06 Nov 2023
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has published the UK Government’s response to its report, Protecting Marine Mammals in the UK and Abroad. The report, published in June, recommended stronger measures to tackle the problem of bycatch by introducing mandatory bycatch monitoring and called on DEFRA to publish an action plan to achieve […]
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