Wildfires, Waste, and Weak Oversight: Our Letter to The Times

Sir, As ministers review environmental regulators (“Ministers ordered to slash number of green quangos”, Sep 15), some will cry ‘attack on nature’. The real issue is value for money. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, regulators were bound by BATNEEC the Best Available Technique Not Entailing Excessive Cost. It ensured environmental gains had to be proportionate to the costs of achieving them.

Quangos such as Natural England were required to prove they could deliver results without wasting public money. That safeguard vanished in 2000 when the UK implemented the EU’s IPPC Directive. Since then, Natural England has drifted towards extreme and impractical decisions. Examples include a £100 million HS2 “bat tunnel”, rejection of a credible hen harrier recovery plan for being too simple and a byzantine burning licence system that has left moors choked with wildfire fuel.

In today’s fiscal climate, this cost-blind approach will inevitably attract the attention of the Treasury and National Audit Office. Unless Natural England can demonstrate value for money, it risks not just reform, but abolition. Re-adopting a test that avoids “excessive cost” is its best defence.

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