draft natural environment and rural communities bill

	DRAFT NATURAL ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL COMMUNITIES BILL DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS RESPONSE FROM THE OPEN SPACES SOCIETY MARCH 2005
1.	The Open Spaces Society (formally the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society) was founded in 1865 and is Britain’s oldest conservation body. A registered charity, we campaign to create and conserve common land, town and village greens, open spaces and public paths in town and country throughout England and Wales. We have 2,400 members consisting of individuals, organisations and local authorities at all levels.

2.	We generally support the Natural Environment and Communities Bill but have a few comments to make.

	The integrated agency

3.	We believe that the combination of the land, access and recreation parts of the Countryside Agency, English Nature and the bulk of the Rural Development Service, will be a powerful agency able to achieve a great deal. It is vital that it is a truly independent body, willing to challenge government, and that it gives equal weight to all its concerns. We would not wish to see landscape, recreation or access being subservient to biodiversity, since all are crucial and interdependent.

	Clause 2(1)

4.	We like the overarching purpose and its wide-ranging nature.

	Clause 2(2)

5.	It should be made clear that each element of this clause has equal weighting. In addition (b) should include ‘protection’ to bring it in line with the power for biodiversity. In (c) ‘nature’ should be amended to ‘natural environment’. We welcome the wide-ranging nature of (d) and trust it will not be made narrower.

	Clause 12

6.	We are pleased that the agency may bring criminal proceedings. We believe it is essential that it has teeth. We should also like it to have powers to intervene where local authorities and other bodies fail to carry out their statutory duties in areas within the agency’s remit, eg the maintenance of public rights of way.

	Schedule 10

7.	National Parks Act 1949 section 65(5) ‘Countryside Agency’ should be amended to ‘agency’. (This is for making access orders.)

8.	Para 134: we welcome the extension of path-creation powers so that the new agency can make orders to provide access to open-access land. We further recommend that this power be extended to allow the agency to make creation orders for links in the rights-of-way network to achieve public benefits.

	Other provisions - rights of way

9.	We disagree that this bill should be used to introduce plans to curb the use of rights of way by mechanically-propelled vehicles. This is a complex and controversial issue and requires a great deal of thought and parliamentary time, which will probably not be available for this bill.