Francis Maude – misquoted

Francis Maude is widely regarded as the hard man of the Cabinet Office – if you look at the photographs of Cabinet Office Ministers he can’t even manage a proper smile, more of a ‘I’m coming to get your quangos‘ leer.  Having said that, Oliver Letwin, who is a cultured gent and so tends to…

The environmental content of David Cameron’s Conference speech

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Chancellor mentions environment shock!

George Osborne felt confident enough to say it as he saw it at the Tory party conference yesterday. “Yes, climate change is a man made disaster. Yes, we need international agreement to stop it. Yes, we must have investment in greener energy. And that’s why I gave the go ahead to the world’s first Green…

Planning for wildlife

It was good to see this story in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday.  The RSPB have a legal opinion from Nathalie Lieven QC, the environmental barrister, who has “ no doubt the draft NPPF lessens the policy protection for SSSIs”. I wrote in comments on this blog on 9 September the following: ‘Although European designations…

Never seen that before

Last weekend I revisited one of the haunts of my youth – a place called Steart or Stert.  And I’m going with Stert as I’ve always known it as ‘Sturt’ rather than ‘Steert’. As spotty teenagers at Bristol Grammar School we would, under the guardianship of masters  Derek Lucas and Tony Warren, make two autumn…