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Ministers propose scrapping pollution rules to build more homes

Neil Blood said:
DEFRA have put out a consultation on hedgerow management to all farmers/landowners, with questions basically ranging from weakening current protections to maintaining them!

Why would you want to weaken them, given our catastrophic declines in farmland wildlife over recent decades. Its basically the government yet again, trying to erode EU environmental protection laws!

This government is an absolute shower of %$£&! where the environment is concerned!
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I don't think the hedgerow management consultation is a particular cause for concern in all honesty Neil. Currently the law that applies to hedgerows is the Hedgerow Regulations which comes under the arm of LPA's. It's a pretty toothless set of regulations which only protects a hedgerow from removal. There is nothing to specifically stop hedges being cut during the breeding bird season or roots damaged through close cultivation. And LPA's are under resourced to police these as they are.

The only rules that currently apply to cutting hedges in the breeding bird season come under Cross Compliance, which only applies to farm claiming subsidies, however all these subsidies are being phased out/delinked in the next few years. Same with buffer strips adjacent to hedgerows.

What is being proposed is new specific primary legislation to offer better hedgerow protection and actual legal requirements not to cut hedges in the breeding bird season and mandatory 2m buffer zones for cultivation. So far from weakening hedgerow protections, Defra is actually looking to beef them up. I know it's hard to fathom, but occasionally Defra does do something right!
 
Joe,

If that's the case, it includes some very odd questions, such as:

- Should we maintain the requirement for buffer strips that are 2m from the centre of the hedgerow?

- Should we maintain a no cutting period to ensure hedgerows are managed in a way which protects important bird species?

- Should we introduce a new exemption to the hedgerow management requirements for farms under 5 hectares?
 
That's the nature of a consultation survey. Have you done the survey? All the questions seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Lots of opportunity to make additional points etc. Bare in mind that anyone advocating for scrapping the rules on cutting during the breeding bird season has to justify why in the additional info section. They may be able to provide some anecdotal guff, but no science.

To be fair to Defra, they set-aside funding this year to fund the creation or restoration of 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of hedgerows by 2037, rising to 45,000 miles (72,000 km) by 2050. The new scheme (SFI) to replace direct subsidies provide incentive for biennial and triennial hedgerow trimming and payments for farmers to have their hedgerows surveyed and to introduce/encourage new hedgerow trees.
 
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