“In his determination to balance the nation’s finances, George Osborne has forgotten that living within our means is also about natural resources. This budget is an attempt to return us to the failed policies of the past – unsustainable growth based on dwindling and ever-more expensive resources.

“The Chancellor had five opportunities to deliver a budget for the future, that could have turned the growing crisis over energy resources and climate change into a catalyst for creating much-needed jobs and wealth in new energy efficiency and renewable industries.”

The Green Party, with leading environmental and conservation groups, had identified five key areas where the Chancellor could act to help tackle climate change and boost jobs and sustainable growth.

* The Green Investment Bank: this should have been the key to unlocking the £450 billion in finance for renewable energy needed in the next fifteen years. Instead, by creating a bank that cannot borrow, its impact will be limited to the original £3 billion funding.

* Carbon Floor Prices: at £30 a ton, the new levy on carbon will not be high enough to promote low-carbon energy. But it will give nuclear power companies a windfall subsidy of anything from £1.3 billion to £3 billion – paid for by the “hard-pressed families” George Osborne claims to want to help.(1)

* Transport: taxing the excess profits of North Sea oil companies is welcome; but it would have been better spent on protecting rural bus services, which are even more crucial to isolated communities and the poorest in society than the cost of fuel. Instead, by cutting fuel duty the Government is pretending that high fuel prices are temporary, rather than an inevitable consequence of dwindling supplies and unchecked demand.

* Environmental taxes: though George Osborne claims the proportion of revenue raised from green taxes will rise, the decision to postpone the rise in the Aggregates Levy and to scrap the planned rise in Air Passenger Duty will reduce revenue from environmental taxes by £160 million. It will also encourage more people to holiday abroad, hitting UK resorts.

* Zero Carbon Homes: property developers were expecting to have to contribute towards community renewable energy generation in order to offset the remainder of the emissions from new homes, which, from 2016, have to be zero carbon. In the budget, the Chancellor has changed the rules to exclude emissions from appliances, which means that supposedly zero-carbon’ homes would in fact create carbon emissions for years to come. It will also undermine many community energy schemes.(2)

In addition, the Chancellor announced a weakening in the protection for the countryside and green space with changes to the planning system, putting precious landscapes and habitats in even greater risk. Caroline said:

“In Opposition, George Osborne pledged that “If I become Chancellor, the Treasury will become a green ally, not a foe.”(1). Now he is power, we see the reality. This budget contains nothing to shift us away from our dependency on oil and gas, nothing to take advantage of the potential of new technologies such as wind, wave and tide, and precious little to encourage investment in renewable industries.

“Instead, he has gone for the gesture of a penny off fuel duty. It gives drivers the false comfort that as fuel prices rise, the government will cut fuel duty. The reality is that petrol is a dwindling resource and we need to help people with alternatives, such as public transport. But while Osborne could find £2 billion for petrol, there was not a penny today for buses or trains.

“The depressing truth is that, rather than being the greenest government ever, this Conservative-led coalition is less green that John Major’s administration, who introduced the fuel duty escalator, boosted energy efficiency and protection for threatened habitats. That this should be a coalition with the Liberal Democrats is doubly shocking.”

NOTES

1) The Government’s own analysis (by Redpoint for HMT and DECC) is that the subsidy will be £1.33 billion; WWF estimate it at £3 billion.

2) http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget_growth.pdf (p.117)

Green Party activists will assemble at Temple and Embankment areas of Victoria Embankment, from 9am. Our Hyde Park stall will be set up from noon onwards.

Instead of cutting public services, we can tackle the deficit in other ways:

– Increase taxes for the very wealthiest

– Clamp down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance

– Introduce a financial transaction tax – Robin Hood Tax

– No more expensive PFI schemes that are bad value for money

– Cancel unnecessary road building – £3 billion a year

– Scrap the Trident nuclear weapons programme – £4 billion a year

– Bring our troops home from Afghanistan – £7 million a day

Romayne Phoenix, national campaigns coordinator for the Green Party, said: “Labour started the patchwork privatisation of the NHS, introduced the school academies programme and tuition fees, and the coalition government is going even further. The tragedy is that a million people will be thrown out of work, at a time when we need a million more jobs to tackle climate change and provide clean, affordable energy supplies for our future.”

Delyth Miller, Bridgend Green Party Agent, said: “I shudder to think what these cuts are going to mean to the vast numbers of vulnerable people in South Wales and Bridgend in particular. We Greens seem to be the only Party consistently resisting the vandalism of our public services and offering serious alternatives. The march on the 26th shows the immense hunger there is for the alternatives we have to offer.”

For more information on the march: http://marchforthealternative.org.uk/

The proposal would be implemented on the 1 August, reducing payments to farmers or owners of large commercial buildings.

The industry has reacted with anger to the proposal.

And investors have warned that cutting the scheme just a year after it was created will deter further investment in renewable energy.

“The whole investor market was totally disengaged as a result of the feed in tariff being ripped up,” said Ben Warren, partner with Ernst and Young, a consultancy.

‘Absolute disaster’ According to the government’s proposal, which is subject to consultation, payments for any solar installation over about 50kW would be reduced.

The full reduction would apply to installations from 250kw to 5MW – the standard size for a farm based scheme.

“It’s an absolute disaster,” said Ray Noble, solar specialist at the Renewable Energy Association.

“No new projects will start after this comes into effect

The tariff had not been due to be reviewed until 2013.

The new scheme is designed to preserve funds, which come from consumer bills, for schemes on domestic roofs.

These tend to be more expensive and generally need greater subsidies.

YET MORE BROKEN PROMISES AND ECONOMIC ILLITERACY FROM THE CON-DEMs

Caroline Lucas (and Simon Hughes) impress on Question Time. Kelvin Mackenzie is as obnoxious as ever. Plus two intellectual lightweights.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zt615/Question_Time_17_03_2011/

Bridgend Green Party Meeting tonight

7.30pm at Haywain Function Room

Caroline Lucas will be on BBC Question Time in Eastbourne tonight (Thursday) alongside Kelvin Mackenzie, Baroness Warsi and Lord West – 4th panellist tbc..

Delegations from Bridgend Green Party, TheValeSaysNo.com, and the Vale of Glamorgan Green Party met at The Carne Arms, Llysworney, to share knowledge and ideas.

We all came away with things to do to try and advance the campaign to put a stop to fracking proposals, not just at Llandow, but across the whole South Wales region under threat from such proposals. More details at the Bridgend Green Party meeting on Thursday.

It was agreed that this Action Group would meet again – at the Carne Arms again – at 7.30pm on Sunday 10th of April.

Andy & Delyth

P.S. GASLAND is now available on DVD. Get yourself up to speed with the full implications of fracking – and also appreciate a unique piece of film making that should have won the Oscar, for which it was nominated, for Best Documentary Feature

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gasland-DVD-Josh-Fox/dp/B004CSKCT0

AGENDA

1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Apologies for Absence
3. Minutes and matters arising
4. Officer reports
5. Elections – WAG and 2012*
6. Campaigns update – Fracking, 20 is Plenty
7. National Demonstration Against the Cuts – 26th March
8. Fundraising
9. AOB
10. DoNM

Policy Discussion Topic – Nuclear weapons.
http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/mpd.html

NOTES:
* Item 5 to include issue of ‘paper’ candidates and candidate eligibility for BCBC elections next year.

Date: 11/03/2011 15:01:25
Subject: FW: URGENT – Calling in of planning applications

Dear Mr Chyba

Thank you for your e-mail of 10 March. My section of the Assembly Government’s Planning Division has responsibility for dealing with call-in requests and your e-mail has been passed to me for response. Firstly, the Welsh Ministers have consistently held the view that democratically elected authorities should be responsible for determining planning applications wherever possible. Jane Davidson, the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing becomes involved in the consideration of a planning application only when she considers that the application raises planning issues of more than local importance. Over the last 10 years only 0.02% of planning applications have been called in. I make that point here – not to pre-judge any view about your request(s) – but to make clear that the call-in of an application is a comparatively rare event. In effect, the Minister will need to be convinced that an application is of regional or even national importance. Secondly, I cannot accept your “blanket” request for all applications in Wales of a certain type to be called in. Minerals Planning Policy Wales sets out those issues which need to be taken into consideration when a decision maker deals with an application involving energy production and nothing in MPPW or PPW leads me to believe that all applications for coal bed methane extraction or related processes are automatically contrary to national planning policy or automatically raise issues of more than local importance. All call in requests must be considered on their own merits but they must relate to individual applications that have not yet been determined by the local authority. It is not the role of the Assembly Government to trawl through current applications to see what might be considered for call in. The Assembly Government will look at an application if a call in request is made or if an application is notified to us by the authority – say, as a significant departure from its development plan.

You have quoted a number of applications which I have managed to track down on Council websites. 2010/0720, 0688 and 0703 all appear to have been made by Centrica to Neath Port Talbot CBC. 2010/0665 and 0664 are not on the website and may be the two Centrica applications which you refer to as being withdrawn or having been determined. P11/12 in Bridgend and 2011/0115 in Vale of Glamorgan also appear to be live applications. I can consider these 5 applications for call in if you make representations for each to be called explaining the rationale for your request (in this respect I have attached a leaflet on call-in for information). I hope you will appreciate that it is not sufficient to refer substantial controversy or threat to habitats in general terms. You also make reference to an application in Swansea made by Composite Energy. I found no live application by that company in Swansea’s list of current applications. I have insufficient information to look at the RCT or Caerphilly council websites. You would need to identify a specific application before any further action could be taken. The Welsh Ministers do not consider the merits of an application when considering call-in and will not consider allegations about how an application is being processed by a Council or whether a Council’s officers, or those of the Environment Agency, are sufficiently qualified or experienced to determine an application. Any concerns about propriety or the processing of an application has to be addressed to the Council’s Monitoring Officer or the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales. You have also asked for a moratorium to be imposed on any application that already has permission. There is no provision in law for such action once a planning permission has been granted. The decision to grant the permission would need to be challenged in the Courts through judicial review. To summarise, from the information you have supplied, there are 5 identified planning applications that are undetermined – 3 in NPT, one in Bridgend and one in VoG. If you wish the Welsh Ministers to consider any or all of those for call-in I would be grateful if you would confirm which ones; a case for call-in should properly be made for each separate application and should relate to the specific planning issues raised by each application. If you wish to proceed with your request for some or all of the extant applications to be called-in could you send any representations you wish to make about the application(s) to the case officer who, in this case, will be John Saunders (029 2082 3878 or john.saunders)

Clive Ancrum
Planning Decisions Branch – Cangen Benderfyniadau Cynllunio
Welsh Assembly Government – Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru
Cathays Park – Parc Cathays
Cardiff – Caerdydd CF10 3NQ
Tel – Ffon [029-2082] ext 5181
GTN: 1208-5181
Fax – Ffacs [029 2082] ext 5622
email – ebost: clive.ancrum

From: Andy Chyba in my capacity as Chair of BRIDGEND GREEN PARTY

8 Min-y-Coed, Brackla, Bridgend CF31 2AF
Tel: 01656 647314 Mobile: 078 1066 3241
Email: greens

APPLICATION DETAILS:
C.B.C. BRIDGEND
Ref: P/11/12/FUL
Location: FORMER ST JOHNS COLLIERY MAESTEG BRIDGEND CF34 0DH
Applicant: UK METHANE LIMITED
Date: 07-01-2011
Proposal: DRILL AND TEST THE INSITU NAMURIAN SHALE AND ASSOCIATED STRATA

This is an issue across the whole of the South Wales Coalfield area (and a bit beyond)

There are many applications of this type before all the Council areas of the coalfield area – they should all be called in.

We have seen Centrica withdraw their two proposals in Bridgend CBC at the point at which I was about to request them to be called in.

I know Centrica have several others (5 I believe, 2 of which may have been approved by now) similar proposals before Neath Port Talbot CBC.
Refs:

It will involve the “Say NO to Toxic Gas Drilling in the Vale” campaign/Facebook group, representatives of the Vale of Glamorgan Green Party and us at Bridgend Green Party.

It will take place on Sunday evening (13th March) at the Victoria Inn, Sigingstone, from 7.30pm.

All are welcome to attend. If anyone would like me to pick them up on route, just let me know.

Andy