Local Nature Partnership Meeting Minutes
Issued by: Rosy Carter / Authorisation:Subject: / Lowland Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
Local Nature Partnership Board Meeting
Meeting
Date: / 23rd November 2015 / Meeting From:
time To: / 2pm
4.30pm / Location: / Toyota
Attendees: (ü attended, X not attended, A apologies)
Board members / Support staff
Tony Walker (Chair) / Toyota UK / ü / Rosy Carter (LNP) / ü
Mike Ashworth / Derbyshire County Council / A / Adam Lathbury (DCC) / ü
Janice Bradley / Notts. Wildlife Trust / ü / John Malpas (Toyota) / ü
Angela Mayson (DWT) / ü
Dave Parker / Natural England / ü / Geoff Richards (Defra) / A
Patrick Candler / SRPB / ü / Heather Stokes (NCC) / A
Andrew Critchlow / National Farmers Union / ü
Rob Crowder / Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire / A / Also attending:
John Everitt / National Forest Company / ü / Carl Cornish, RSPB
Tim Farr / Regional Flood and Coastal Committee / ü / Allison Thomas, DCC
Tony Hams (Vice Chair) / National Trust / ü / Rob Routledge, Mansfield District Council
Paul Hopkins / Tarmac / x / Kira Besh, Mansfield District Council
Chris Hughes / Derby University / ü
Frank Lucas / RSPB / A
Helen Ross / Nottingham City Council / A
Jo Smith / Derbyshire Wildlife Trust / ü
Martin Suthers / Nottinghamshire Health and Wellbeing Board / ü
Jim Toothill / David Wilson Homes / ü
Rob Ward / BGS / ü
Anne Western / Derbyshire County Council / A
Maureen Whittaker / Derbyshire County Council / ü
Next meeting: Tuesday 2nd February 2016, 2.00 - 4.30pm
Acronyms used in the minutes
BGS / British Geological Survey
DCC / Derbyshire County Council
DtC / Duty to Cooperate
DWT / Derbyshire Wildlife Trust
EA / Environment Agency
ESIF / European Structural Investment Funds
HLF / Heritage Lottery Fund
LDN / Lowland Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire
LPA / Local Planning Authority
NC / Natural Capital
NCC / Nottinghamshire County Council
NE / Natural England
NELMS / New Environmental Land Management Schemes
NWT / Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
RFCC / Regional Flood and Coastal Committee
SRPB / Sherwood Regional Park Board
TVV / Trent Valley Vision
Item / Minutes and Actions / Who / When
1. / Welcome and introductions
TW welcomed:
· Carl Cornish – in Frank Lucas’ place
· Allison Thomas – in Mike Ashworth’s place
· Rob Routledge and Kira Besh.
Chris Brookes has left the board due to work commitments and Rob Crowder will leave at Christmas as he is leaving RCAN.
Tim Farr will take over as Chair from TW on 1st January 2016.
2. / Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes were agreed.
3. / Matters arising not covered elsewhere
a) Devolution update (PC)
Full agreement across all councils has not been reached. Deal now unlikely to be agreed before New Year - if it goes ahead. The current Devolution Prospectus has no mention of environmental issues or regional park designation as items that could form part of the devo ‘deal’.
b) Trent Valley Vision update (AL)
Risk and Policy Analysis, who have been contracted to do the economic study, have collated baseline economic data and drafted scenarios. They plan to complete the study Feb. 2016.
TW – is completion date tied in to funding opportunities?
AL – hopes report will be ready to support bids for next round of LEP Growth Deal funding in April 2016.
4. / Derby University Centre of Excellence (CH)
Partly as a result of the LNP’s input (especially AL) Derby University has agreed to fund and establish An Environmental
Sustainability Research Centre in their College of Life and Natural Sciences. This is currently under Professor Paul Lynch but the University is about to advertise for a professorial level Director.
It is intended to bring together three main strands of current work:
1. Ecosystems, Ecology and Conservation Biology.
2. Ethical approaches to earth resource utilisation (i.e. quarrying, mining and extraction).
3. Climate change science and research.
Once appointed, the Director will be charged with further scoping out the work of the centre and at that time we could invite them to attend, and present to, the LNP Board.
CH feels this development will enable us to start to better understand the value of Natural Capital and in particular develop a local focus.
CH is pushing to add the interaction of economic and business disciplines, especially as the new head of the College of Business has a particular interest in low carbon economics.
Co-operation will happen with other universities although probably not formally.
TW – could the Centre become a repository of our Natural Capital data?
RW – I will report on this later in the meeting.
5. / Green Infrastructure Proposal for D2N2 Growth Fund (JS)
The working group has drafted a proposal. It includes the following sections: Summary, What GI we have, What we have developed previously and What can be developed in the future. Some small tweaks are still needed – then it will be sent to board for comments – which need to be sent to JS by Fri 4th December if possible.
Action - send GI proposal to RC for circulation to board for comments.
JM attended the Forest and Woodland Advisory Committee meeting on 20th November where Steve Scott FC Director for East England the LNP offered support for GI And proposed a meeting with the LNP.
Action – JM to arrange meeting with Steve Scott (FC) to discuss GI collaboration.
AT – there is some confusion about whether Round 3 Growth Deal money is still available. / JS
JM / 30/11/15
asap
6. / Admin group report (JM)
Budget
Budget is running a surplus of £5796 as of the end of September. Some of the monies can be ring fenced for the workshops in the new year.
Funding
LNP got to the final round of the Toyota 500 Global grant and further information was requested from the Japan Head Office about training and educating planners in natural capital. Unfortunately we did not receive the grant though we were commended on our application. The WG is investigating private sector funding for training planners.
Emma Bee at the British Geological Survey supported by the LNP has submitted a proposal for £95,000 Green Infrastructure Innovation Project funding following on from the Natural Capital WG activities to progress the enhancement of GI infrastructure planning using 3D geological modelling of mineral assets.
Government Polices
Following on from submitting evidence to the Environment Committee review of LNPs the Government has committed to a review in this Parliament. Rosy Carter will be gauging from other LNP chairs the appetite to start consolidating a common position and avoid last minute email consensus building of responses to Government.
JM attended the Defra ‘25 year environment plan’ workshop on 4th November. The workshop was opened by Rory Stewart Under Secretary of State Agriculture and Rural Affairs and chaired by Shirley Trundle DEFRA’s Director of Countryside and Nature. It focussed largely on a Natural Capital approach with 12 themed workshops.
Rory Stewart opened with an excellent introduction and a direct and honest plea to:
- Avoid creating at 25 year plan that is on a shelf collecting dust
- Focus on identifying and challenging the constraints to the plan
- Recognise Government funding is limited. Aim is to fund from private sector /consumers eg bag tax, carbon tax.
Three workshops attended (1)soils and land use (DEFRA soils team) (2) natural capital measurement, valuation, decision making (Helen Dunn DEFRA); and green infrastructure (Nick Weight Natural England). Two particular presentations stood out. Nick Grayson Sustainability Manager at Birmingham CC gave a practical example of using a natural capital planning tool to improve development decisions in Birmingham City. Highways England shared methods of maintenance of green infrastructure on road capital investments in Yorkshire and using products of maintenance in secondary and wood fuel use. These methods created a small profit and in the first instance could be a sustainable maintenance practice in a period of government cuts.
Going forward there will be on-going informal consultations and by mid-2016 DEFRA will produce framework and the 25 year Environment Plan is targeted to be published by end 2016. 25 year plan discussions are being shared through Linkedln #OpenEnvironment
The 25 year plan is relevant to LNP / future role. LNP Admin WG will monitor progression.
JB – will notes be produced from the Defra 25 year environment plan workshop?
JM – will ask Defra if presentations/notes are available. When the framework is produced it will include some of what has been discussed.
JE – will send link to Liz Truss’ speech that launched the development of the 25-year plan (actually RC has already sent this round).
TW – BIS budget has also been cut. Is the way we are focussing on Natural Capital the same as Defra’s? He has recently had two emails from Defra about their Natural Capital work. Should we be sharing out progress and if so how?
JM – each LNP seems to be doing something different on Natural Capital. He’s not sure LNPs really know what each other is doing.
MW – we could hold a national conference on Natural Capital for LNPs etc to attend.
Communications
Rosy Carter is meeting Groundwork on 25th November to discuss the potential for partnership work.
Maureen Whittaker has kindly agreed to support the Local Access Forum meeting on the 4th December.
On the website a latest news section has been added to the homepage. Any news items including our responses to planning consultations will be reviewed each week and added to the website where appropriate. Members should be receiving email alerts. If you are not let Rosy know and she can check and correct.
Actions
Admin Group to identify best methods for sharing our progress with Defra and other LNPs.
Put ourselves forward as a potential LNP for Rory Stewart (Minister for Environment and Rural Affairs) to visit. / Admin Gp
Admin Gp / 31/12/15
asap
7. / Planning Group Report (TH)
JB (to RR) – what is the most effective approach to sharing information with all the LPAs?
RR - JM attended Notts Planning Officers’ Group which was useful.
TH – Planning Group suggests we should run some training in Natural Capital for Planners.
RR – that would be helpful. The Mansfield Local Plan does refer to environmental assets but doesn’t call them Natural Capital – to some extent it’s an issue of terminology. Some LPAs will be too far down the road with their plans to add references to Natural Capital.
TH – we plan to ask NCC and DCC senior strategic Planners to join the LNP Planning Group and provide resources to help respond to consultations.
DP – NE can offer support from their Planners – they can help advise on consultation responses.
8. / Strategy and Engagement Group report (JS)
Terms of Reference
JS will add a bullet point about supporting implementation of practical projects that improve Natural Capital
AT – suggested a reference to measurable targets is added to bullet point 2.
CC – was FL asked to be on the group? JS - group members were pre-selected based on who will be leading the consultation sessions. Happy to invite FL to join.
Workshops
Jo will send lists of planned attendees round. Aiming for 12-15 people per session. If board members have suggestions for additional attendees, let JS know. Habitats and Species sessions may be combined or run back-to-back.
Toyota and BGS both happy to host.
Actions
Update and distribute Strategy Group ToR
Invite FL to join Strategy Group
Send lists of session attendees to RC to distribute to board / JS
JS
JS / Asap
Asap
Asap
9. / Natural Capital Group report (RW)
CH – should the group’s name be changed to Natural Capital Data group?
MW – would definitely be useful for Planners to see Natural Capital data.
AT – do we have the resource to update data? DCC cannot commit resources.
RW – BGS cannot either. However, much of the data is already kept up-to-date. The challenge is to make it available to interested parties eg LPAs.
AM - is attending the World Forum on Natural Capital on behalf of DWT on 24/25th Nov and will feed back to LNP. Asked how Defra’s Open Data initiative might tie in with Natural Capital work.
Action
AM to send notes from conference to RC to distribute to board. / AM/RC / 4/12/15
10. / Comms between LNP groups (TH)
Minutes of group meetings will be shared.
TF suggested opening up group meeting invitations to other group chairs.
Actions
RC to enable sharing of group meeting minutes.
Group Chairs will meet (by tele-conf?) regularly to update each other / RC
TF / 4/12/15
ongoing
11. / Presentation on Mansfield District Local Plan (RR)
JM – the question for LPAs is – do you know how much Natural Capital you have and how much you need. Housing needs are identified, why not Natural Capital needs?
KB – how much Natural Capital is needed depends on what it is needed for. Housing needs are less complex to calculate and are included in plans because the government expects that they are identified.
JB – in some parts of the county BAP partners have created maps of ecological connectivity – these have been incorporated into GI strategy by some LPAs.
CC - there are other mechanisms for achieving improvements to Natural Capital as well as through the planning system.
JE – we need to get information to LPAs about areas of Natural Capital that need enhancing as well as those that need protecting – because an enhanced natural environment can enhance development.
AT – good planning is all about improving the quality of life for residents and identifying how GI contributes to this.
12. / AOB
This was TW’s last meeting as Chair. He has Chaired the LNP from its inception in 2013. TH thanked him for his commitment to the LNP and many board members also expressed their thanks.
Action - Admin group to propose rules for tenure of board members, Chair and Vice Chair. / Admin Group / 27/01/15
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