Category: Press Releases

England’s national parks are set to benefit from new additional funding announced by the government today (01 March 2023). £4.4 million will be provided to the country’s ten National Park Authorities to support services such as visitor centres and park rangers.

The funding award is in recognition of the vital role that our national parks play in protecting our precious wildlife and landscapes and the importance they have for tourism, the regional economy, and public access. Each authority will be awarded an equal share of the grant.

Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey said:

Our National Parks are the jewel in our cherished landscapes. They support thriving communities, economies, wildlife and are important places for public health and wellbeing.

This additional £4.4 million of funding will support the important work that National Park Authorities do across our countryside, and allow local people and visitors to enjoy these much loved spaces

The funding will help protect vital assets, such as education centres and ranger services, and will provide more opportunities for people to enjoy National Parks. It could also be used to support the creation of new trails, residential programmes and mobility schemes. It will also support access and engagement programmes helping to conserve the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of these protected landscapes.

The Farming in Protected Landscapes scheme, currently delivered across 10 National Parks and 34 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) since 2021, will also be extended until March 2025. This will enable National Parks and AONBs to continue delivering outcomes for nature, climate, people and place.

Further information:

• The 10 National Park Authorities to benefit from an equal share of the £4.4 million grant are: Broads, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Lake District, New Forest, North Yorkshire Moors, Northumberland, Peak District, South Downs and Yorkshire Dales.

Plans to make it easier for consumers to recycle packaging waste move a step closer today, as reporting requirements for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) come into force.

Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) will make firms that supply household packaging responsible for the costs of dealing with packaging waste, moving costs away councils and council taxpayers.

Producers will be required to pay for the collection and disposal costs of household packaging they supply when it becomes waste. This will encourage producers to reduce the amount of packaging they place on the market, and to improve the recyclability of their packaging – in turn ensuring less waste ends up in the natural environment.

From today, all obligated packaging producers in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland must collect information on the amount and type of packaging they have supplied during 2023. Wales will follow shortly.

Producers with a turnover of greater than £2 million and who handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging each year must also report this information to the Environment Agency twice a year.

The first reports must be submitted from 1 October 2023.

Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said:

We need to stem the flow of packaging which goes unrecycled and instead is lost forever to landfill and incineration.

As set out in our Environmental Improvement Plan, these reforms will encourage businesses to increase their use of recyclable materials, shifting costs away from the taxpayer and supporting our work to protect the environment from the scourge of waste.

Deep Sagar, chair of the Advisory Committee on Packaging, said:

Packaging materials that are not recycled back into new packaging harm our natural environment. Councils have to spend more managing that waste and the public cannot enjoy spaces such as parks and high streets as they should.

Extended Producer Responsibility will reduce that waste. It will make goods producers pay for collection of all packaging waste encouraging them to reduce or recycle more packaging. I look forward to supporting government and industry in making this smart policy work for the public and improving the environment.

Claire Shrewsbury, Director of Insights and Innovation at the Waste and Resources Action Programme, said:

The introduction of an EPR for packaging could be a game-changer. If done effectively, it could reduce the impact packaging has on the environment by regulating material use and increasing recycling.

For EPR to work it must serve all – producers, local and central government, recyclers, and the public. We’ve been working with these key groups since 2018 to help collaboration on pEPR.

In 2020, 12 million tonnes of packaging was placed on the UK market, some of which contains plastics that are hard to recycle. Incentivising producers to use better, more recyclable materials will help to stem this tide of waste.

Producers will be required to pay an EPR fee towards the costs of collecting and managing household packaging waste, currently borne by local authorities. This shift of cost is estimated to be around £1.2 billion per year across all local authorities, once EPR is fully operational.

Before decisions are made about the final shape of the scheme, we need to gather information from businesses that will be affected. This data will provide the basis for establishing the packaging waste management fees individual producers will pay in 2024, when pEPR comes into force.

We are engaging with businesses and local authorities to shape the future vision of waste reforms through industry-wide sprint events, deep dive sessions and fortnightly forums. This will help ensure business readiness for our planned reforms from 2024, ensuring industry are involved in shaping the long-term future of EPR.

These plans build on our wider efforts to eliminate avoidable plastic waste. Earlier this year we announced that a ban on single-use plastic plates, trays, bowls, cutlery, balloon sticks, expanded and extruded polystyrene food and drinks containers, including cups, will be introduced in England from October 2023.

We have also announced further details on the implementation of our Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers to boost recycling and clamp down on plastic pollution and litter.

We have already introduced a ban on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, restrictions on the supply of single-use plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds, and our world-leading Plastic Packaging Tax introduced last year.

Meanwhile, our single-use plastic carrier bag charge has successfully cut sales by over 97% in the main supermarkets.

For further information, please see our specific guidance on collecting data for packaging EPR, along with our wider guidance for industry on GOV.UK.

Marine habitats and wildlife are set to receive the highest levels of protection as the Environment Secretary today (28 February) announces the Government will designate the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas in English waters.

Delivering on the commitments set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan, Highly Protected Marine Areas will enable nature to fully recover by removing all harmful activities including fishing, construction and dredging, increasing marine biodiversity and supporting climate-resilient ecosystems to thrive.

From safeguarding ‘blue carbon’ habitats to help tackle climate change; protecting the feeding and nursery grounds of commercially important fish species such as cod and herring; through to reversing the impacts of human activity on degraded marine ecosystems, the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas were chosen due to the ecological importance of nature recovery in the sites.

The three sites being taken forward will be designated before 6 July 2023 and are Allonby Bay (Irish Sea), Dolphin Head (Eastern Channel) and North East of Farnes Deep (Northern North Sea).

Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey said:

Our comprehensive Environment Improvement Plan sets us on a path to deliver an improved marine environment and halt the decline in biodiversity which benefits us all.

Highly Protected Marine Areas are a vital step forward in enabling our ecosystems to thrive, increasing climate resilience and ensuring we have a healthy and productive marine environment for generations to come.

The first three Highly Protected Marine Areas include inshore and offshore sites and will complement the existing network of Marine Protected Areas covering 40% of English waters. Their introduction follows recommendations in the Benyon Review to help achieve clean, healthy, safe, productive, and biologically diverse ocean and seas, and drives forward the Government’s commitment to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030.

Marine Minister Lord Benyon said:

This is a crucial next step to aid marine ecosystem recovery in our waters and I’m delighted to see my recommendations become a reality today.

Not only will the first of these Highly Protected Marine Areas protect important species and habitats, but they will propel the UK forward in our mission to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030.

Allonby Bay contains ‘blue carbon’ habitats that capture and store carbon. The site also contains honeycomb reefs and blue mussel beds which can provide water purification and important protection from coastal erosion. Nursery and spawning habitats for a range of commercial species including cod, plaice, sole and herring will also be protected.

Dolphin Head has been degraded following impacts of human activity so the Highly Protected Marine Area presents an opportunity to fully recover habitats and species. It will help protect the feeding and nursery grounds of many important commercial fish species such as cod, herring, plaice as well as ecologically important habitats such as ross worm reefs.

North East of Farnes Deep has high levels of biodiversity. The large areas of muddy habitats are important for the storage of carbon as well as for a range of species including birds, marine mammals and fish. This includes spawning and nursery habitats for up to ten commercially important species such as angler fish, surmullet, whiting and haddock.

Natural England Chair Tony Juniper said:

The long term sustainability of our ocean and its ability to provide the essential ecosystem services that will help us meet the challenge of climate change, protect food security and sustain the coastal and marine economy is in part dependent on having the right protections in place.

The designation of the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas moves us towards this goal. I welcome this as a first step towards greater protection of our marine wildlife. I also look forward to working with government to identify additional areas where important marine habitats and species can benefit from the highest levels of protection.

The Government consulted on five pilot sites last year to gather a wide range of views and additional evidence to help inform which Highly Protected Marine Areas would be designated, receiving over 900 responses. After listening to the responses, and with further consideration of socio-economic impacts, two sites – Lindisfarne and Inner Silver Pit South – will not be taken forward to designation. Additional sites will now be explored and any future options will also be subject to consultation.