The Government has launched a consultation to consider the introduction of 'Conservation Covenants'.
The Government has launched a consultation to consider the introduction of 'Conservation Covenants'. The proposals could result in new legal safeguards to take action against landowners in order to protect nature or heritage sites.
Initially, these will be voluntary commitments. However, once introduced they will be legally binding on future landowners; leaving behind a lasting conservation legacy which new landowners will need to follow.
Michael Gove, Environment Secretary, remarked that these have been a successful integration in many other countries. "Conservation covenants are a valuable new tool to help protect our precious countryside.”
They are intended to unleash a new wave of safeguards for the natural environment and act as an integral aspect of the Government's 25-year environment plan. As well as having the effect of a legal covenant to prevent certain actions, these covenants can be used to encourage positive environmental actions. For example, to protect an archaeological site or protect a heritage site that has been restored before its sale. Up until now, conservation bodies have needed to buy up biodiverse plots in order to fully protect them. This could be a viable alternative where bodies can instead set out payments and obligations for a landowner in an agreement. Moreover, they could be used to enforce drainage obligations or protect woodland on land to prevent flooding.
The proposed covenants could take a number of forms including:
CLA President, Tim Breitmayer said: “Conservation covenants have the potential to help deliver a range of environmental and other public benefits across the countryside. In the right circumstances they can be an important tool for those landowners who are considering long term investment in the environment.”
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Director of Conservation leaves us optimistic for the future, “to restore nature in a generation, we need to think and act differently. Conservation covenants are a good example of a new approach which could drive transformational change for nature. By making these covenants a statutory scheme, with clear criteria and oversight, it would help speed up transactions between developers, landowners and conservation bodies, to the environmental and financial benefits of all.”
DEFRA states that "these plans are a further step in our ambition to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.”
Government is encouraging people to have a say on the proposals the proposals which will form part of the forthcoming Environmental Bill.
See: Press release: Gove unveils new covenants to protect nature.
Law firm Browne Jacobson has collaborated with Wiltshire Council and Christ Church Business School on the launch event of The Council Company Best Practice and Innovation Network, a platform which brings together academic experts and senior local authority leaders, allowing them to share best practice in relation to council companies.
In the Autumn Statement delivered on 17 November, rises to the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates were announced, to take effect from 1 April 2023.
Announced in September but scrapped on 17 November the investment zone proposals were very short lived. The proposal has now morphed into the proposal for a smaller number of clustered zones earmarked for investment.
Settlement agreements are commonplace in an employment context and are ordinarily used to provide the parties to the agreement with certainty following the conclusion of an employment relationship.
On 2 November 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the much awaiting case of Hillside Parks Ltd v Snowdonia National Park Authority [2022] UKSC 30. The Court’s judgment suggests that the long established practice of using drop-in applications is in fact much more restricted than previously thought. This judgment therefore has significant implications for both the developers and local planning authorities.
The war on plastic is being taken to a new level, and businesses that don’t consider sourcing recycled packaging materials could face costly implications.
In ‘failure to remove’ claims, the claimant alleges abuse in the family home and asserts that the local authority should have known about the abuse and/or that they should have removed the claimant from the family home and into care earlier.