Much of David’s speech concentrated on social value, and the damage that has been done by the placing of economic value above social value. Most members of CPRE will agree with this, and will be looking to a new administration to put local services back into our rural communities, both for community reasons and to reduce use of the car. I feel sure that this can be achieved without the degree of subsidy that we have seen in recent times, especially by freeing up regulation and allowing communities to come up with their own models, which they will then want to ensure work on a long term basis. We have seen this where villages have managed to re-open village shops. No doubt David will confirm that this is the sort of thing he wants to see for the future.

So, social value “Yes”, but where was the discussion of environmental value to be found in David’s speech? This, to me, was the missing link. Sustainability is about integrating (NOT balancing or trading off) ecomomic, social and environmental factors in every decison we take. The recent preference in Governemntal circles for putting economic factors very clearly before environmental factors has been very worrying to anyone interested in our landscape, countryside and the natural environment generally. Happily, not much has actually happened in terms of implementation on the ground of these mistaken policies.

So, what I am hoping for in David’s response to this blog is that he really meant to include “environmental value” and environmental integration all the time, but just chose to concentrate on “social value” in his speech. If he can do that, then there will be much relief amongst those many CPRE members, and millions of others who love our beautiful countryside.

Christopher

The email is from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) chairman Noel Edmonds (circa 2004)

Dear Elizabeth,
As reported in the Sunday Times - through one of my companies, VMC,
I have offered free video conferencing equipment to the two major UK political parties.
After many years of trying to open the politicians’ eyes, I am seeking to make sure that they “practice what they preach” by reducing unnecessary travel which in turn will make a significant contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.
At the present time transportation equates to over 30% of CO2 emissions and so even a small reduction in unnecessary travel will have a positive impact upon this very serious issue. Indeed reducing just 5% of existing UK travel will totally negate the emissions argument associated with wind turbines! As you will see from my work with the Meeting Without Moving Foundation,(meetingwithoutmoving.com), and the Renewable Energy Foundation (ref.org.uk)

I believe we have to have a totally fresh approach to the way in which we work, the way in which we travel, and our relationship with our environment and our use of natural resources. Harnessing modern technology and encouraging behavioral change is vital if we are to address many of the serious issues which we now all face. I hope this is sufficient clarification for you.
Best wishes,
Noel

I add my comments what could be more genuine than the realisation that we need to accept a change in lifestyle with everyone doing their bit? Being less wasteful could help to save the planet and save us all money. This could be part of the answer and was mooted about ten years ago

Did not the Energy White Paper EWP stress reducing consumption through efficiency and conservation measures, also development of primarily marine renewables, offshore wind wave and tidal power? (Extract from my response to PPS22 consultation)

Can that consumer-led subsidy, the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs)* ever be justified? Every home should be adequately and affordably heated
Each Wind turbine of 2MW installed capacity attracts the ROC ‘support mechanism’ of about £6.25 million over the 25 year life of the wind power station, operating at about 30% load factor

NOW reduction of CO2 emissions and other pollutants seem lost in the race for regional targets, mainly onshore wind, said to be the answer to combat climate change. This was a real catch 22 as until wind turbines were operational we could not prove whether wind turbines were reducing co2 emissions as expected. Not what might could or should be but what actually is. The facts and figures are there

One element that worries me, however, is Mr Cameron’s apparent willingness to write off regional planning. On the contrary, I believe that regional planning will be fundamental to the task of ensuring that the countryside flourishes socially, economically and environmentally in future. Its significanmce is that it provides a means of reconciling ‘top down’ planning (government policy and all that goes with it) with ‘bottom up’ community based planning. It is essential that regional planning strikes a balance between these potentially conflicting approaches, both of which are essential.

At the moment, regional planning gets a bad name because it is being used by the Government simply as a means of imposing its will on often reluctant local authorities and other local interests - for example on economic and housing growth. But the answer is not to abolish regional planning altogether but to apply it more sensitively and in a better balanced way. With no structure plans these days, we need regional plans to give an overall sense of direction and cohesion to what each local authority is trying to do and to ensure that the whole is at least as great as the sum of the parts. The regional planning process of recent years has been far from perfect, but it deserves to be reformed, not thrown out with the bathwater.

It’s all very well to talk about balancing “social” values against those of “the market”.

But this comes from someone who has recently also argued that while Margaret Thatcher successfully sorted out “the economy” in the 1980s (by elevating market values over all others!), it is now his mission to sort out “society”.

But this is surely self-contradictory? It is not possible, in the real world, to make such a distinction between “the economy” and “society” - and also, of course, crucially, “the environment”. All of these are, in reality, inextricably linked in the day-to-day lives of real people and real businesses, in real communities, at every level.

And how, precisely, would he actually implement such worthy objectives? What specific methodologies would a government led by Cameron use to actually measure “social”, “ethical” or “environmental” values, and balance these against “market” values? The speech is very weak on this.

And, having measured them, how would David Cameron implement this in practical terms? How would he persuade or, more realistically, compel developers to recognise such values – other than through the tried and tested means of “regulation” (and occasionally even “subsidy”) by democratically elected governments - both central and local - which he, in other contexts, addressed to different audiences, roundly denounces?

And what would all this actually mean for the rural environment, such a valued yet under-protected social and economic asset?

He doesn’t actually have anything much specific or practical at all to say on this in this speech – apart from vague hints about decentralisation of power, which all parties tend to make in opposition!

This leads me to the conclusion that his speech is a bit of “feel-good” but essentially vacuous rhetoric - triangulatory spin that in practice adds up to very little.

The government has, indeed, also made rather a hash of this, with its over-centralisation – particularly of planning powers - and its constant genuflections to “market” over social, ethical and environmental values. As Cameron quite rightly says, the recent programme of closures of local Post Offices – both rural and urban – is a case in point, where a relatively small public subsidy is well-justified to provide a service to local communities.

But it stretches the boundaries of credulity to imagine that the Conservative Party, the party of “market” values par excellence, would – once it was in power! – be any better than the current government for those of us who care about the countryside. I therefore remain to be convinced.

So for the countryside in 2026 the future surely looks promising for these are the values that you seem to hold dear. And Cameron’s warm words, to me, also speaks the language of a new consciousness - based around these social values as he so calls it.

But are these just words, is Cameron just an empty shell? I fear that he is just another political charlaton like all who have stood before him concerned only with finding the political centre ground. Where are the real leaders who will take a risk and drive us into this new place of higher consciousness?

It is not only Cameron I fear for. Can you overcome your stuffy conservative values to embrace the change. Indeed can you take your members with you and be the change you wish to see in the countryside? If not, come 2026 your organistion may not be hosting a centenary but a wake.

But Nick deserves credit for being the only person writing in the Vision booklet to suggest that population growth should be tackled and not merely catered for. However his suggestion that population growth would be ‘winding to a halt’ only eleven years after the government’s decision to opt for a UK population limit simply does not make demographic sense. Population growth cannot be turned off like a tap and it takes generations for an increasing population to stabilise.

In the first half of the 1990s, before the immigration influx and when the average family size was well below replacement level at 1.8 and 1.7, the population was still increasing because there was still a large proportion of young people from the earlier baby boom. The rate of population increase had slowed so there was spare capacity in schools, for instance, and this led the media to conclude erroneously that the UK population was shrinking. In fact the Office for National Statistics at the time was predicting that the UK population would continue to increase slowly but steadily until 2025, later revised to 2020. Immigration levels during the last ten years or so have of course completely changed all that.

Whilst we undoubtedly urgently need the Sustainable Development Strategy that Nick envisages, let us be realistic about its short-term effect on population growth.

In the North East Wind Turbines are not doing what they promised yet a letter from the Energy Minister stated there were no problems in the North East
The following figures show the reality
Load Factors as % Compiled by E Mann from figures on OFGEM website
Name of wind power station
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Blyth Harbour Wall 12 11.6 13.2 10.5 9.57
Great Eppleton 11.2 15 zero zero zero
Kirkheaton 25.3 26.8 23.2 27.6 25.74
Tow Law 26.2 31.7 30.8 28.6 21.64
High Hedley Hope 27.4 32.2 33.8 28.6 31.89
GlaxoSmithKline ——— —- 8.9 8.2 10.07
Holmside ——- —- 19.1 14.2 16.7
Holmside nffo ——– ——- 19.8 16.2 22.03
Hare Hill ————— 14.6 16.2 21.94
Hare Hill nffo —————- 18.3 21.1 18.29
*High Volts ——— 15.7 18.4 15.5 21.38
*High Volts nffo ——— 30.1 20.1 6.6 21.74
Blyth offshore WTG 1 16.2 26.5 8.8 2.1
Blyth offshore WTG 2 zero zero zero zero zero
(2002 LF WTG2 zero)

Is this the real Inconvenient Truth?

But I wonder why so many people want to spend their time finding reasons to deny climate change. One possible explanation is given by Robin McKie in his Observer review of Nigel Lawson’s book ‘An Appeal to Reason’: “What really grates is Lawson’s conviction that most of the world’s climatologists, meteorologists, atmospheric physicists, Arctic experts, and biologists, as well several Nobel Prize winners, are all stupid, misguided and wrong in thinking manmade global warming is real. By contrast, Lawson … is virtually the only one with the brains to work out the Truth.

“It is breathtaking arrogance, to say the least, although Lawson is not alone in displaying it. Several other individuals, usually male, elderly, and right wing, still deny climate change is happening, mainly because they cannot stand the thought that greenies may be right and that we will have to curtail our use of big cars, international flights and other carbon-boosting luxuries. These Grumpy Old Deniers feel their lifestyles are threatened by greenies and so reject the entire concept of global warming.”

Full marks to David Cameron for going with the 99% of scientists who say that climate change is a huge threat to the planet (and the English countryside!) rather than with a small bunch of sceptics.

1) He did not at all address the question of what sort of countryside and landscape we want to see in twenty years’ time. I came to the event expecting that to be the theme of the speech. Does the Conservative Party have any long term vision for the countryside? If it does, I haven’t heard it.

2) I don’t doubt Mr Cameron’s commitment to rural communities. CPRE needs to recognise more than it does the importance of ’social value’. But asserting the importance of social value against economic value is not enough. The speech was silent on evironmental value or cultural value. A development - a new road or community centre, for instance - might benefit a village but damage the countryside. How to assess the social value then? The villagers might benefit in some way, but what about the impact of losing yet another piece of undisturbed countryside? Open countryside has great value too, whether you want to call that social, cultural or environmental value. It would be good to hear David Cameron acknowledging that.

3) The example from Felixstowe, above, illustrates the difficulties of trusting local councils, whatever their political complexion, to ‘do the right thing’. Will the Conservative Party support the national guidance on housing density and brownfield development that has saved so much countryside over the last ten years? There is little use in willing the end if you are not also prepared to will the means, and we are unlikely to get the sort of development we need without strong national planning guidance and, dare I say it, strategic regional planning.

So, a good speech, but lots of questions inevitably remain.