The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has today called for the government to aim high and act now to ensure it achieves its ambitions for the environment.
In publishing its first monitoring report on the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, the OEP recognises the plan’s ambition but states that progress has been slow. It presses government now to take stock, and take purposeful, coherent and decisive action so that the environment is restored, protected and enhanced for future generations.
To support this, the report, ‘Taking stock: protecting, restoring and improving the environment in England’, sets out a framework of six ‘building blocks’ that need to be in place.
Dame Glenys Stacey, Chair of the OEP, said: “The 25 Year Environment Plan was an ambitious attempt to confront the challenges facing the environment, yet we continue to see worrying and persistent trends of environmental decline. Our rivers are in a poor state, bird and other species numbers are in serious decline, poor air quality threatens the health of many and our seas and sea floor are not managed sustainably. Turning this round will certainly not be easy. But the Environment Act and the new tools it provides creates a real opportunity for government to make the difference needed. We press government to use the Act to full effect, to deliver the environmental improvements needed for proper stewardship of the environment. Now is the time for a clear and ambitious vision for the environment which is shared and prioritised across all of government. Government must aim high, act with greater expediency, and plan well for a sustainable environment, and give this crisis the priority it needs.”
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Posted On: 12/05/2022