Defra have recently released the following news. If, like some, you are unaware of Defra, it stands for The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They are a British Government department, whose main responsibility is looking after our precious environment. The current minister who represents them is my local MP, Richard Benyon. Being a keen naturalist and environmentalist, I am always keen to hear what he has to say. Below is a link to the latest Defra news release.
More next time.
Tony
naturestimeline 
Hello Tony,
Interesting post. I read the DEFRA document but I’m extremely cynical about any green initiatives by this government. My village has a scheme to install as much solar PV as possible which would either be self financed or as as part of a free scheme (where the energy company get the Feed In Tariff – FIT). This was based on a review of the FIT at the beginning of May next year when it was to be decreased and take up in my village was huge. That was until Monday this week when Greg Barker, the Minister for Energy, announced the FIT was to cut from 43.3p per unit generated to around 18p on December 12th this year. The consequences of reneging on the FIT in this way are potentially disastrous for schemes like ours and solar PV solar uptake in general as it will increase the time to recoup the investment for a domestic user from 7-8 years to around 20 years. And it has been predicted that 25000 jobs will be lost from the solar supply companies before Christmas.
It seems to me the government has proved it has no long term policy other than cutting public spending and isn’t really concerned about energy waste, climate change or unemployment. So I wonder if this plan to green towns and cities is simply a prelude to justifying encroaching developments on green belt land. Which may be overly cynical, but I’m not so sure.
If you or any of your readers have any comments on this it would be great to hear them.
BTW, great blog!
Yes, indeed the coalition (a Tory government by default) is attempting to appeal to the masses. The green agenda never left and like it or not, the climate is changing, the world’s population is exploding and the governments attempts to keep up with these changes are inadequate. Ok, perhaps previous governments could have done more (easy in retrospect), but “we are, where we are” and sadly, there is no short term fix. Regarding your FIT finance reductions, this, on the face of it, appears to be corporate greed, striking once again. Perhaps, you should have replaced the word cutting public spending with the word, slashing. Anyway, putting politics aside, I’m glad you like my blog and keep up the good work with yours.
Kind Regards
Tony Powell