Click here to open Spring Newsletter  issue number 15, March 2012

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Next year's AGM will be Saturday 6 October 2012.  Make a date in your diary. 

Queen’s Speech: Groceries Code Adjudicator offers chance of food fairness in Essex

Food producers and consumers across Essex will benefit greatly from new legislation announced in the Queen’s Speech.

The proposed Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill would create an ombudsman to uphold the Competition Commission’s existing Groceries Code and ensure suppliers are treated fairly and lawfully by large retailers (those with a groceries turnover in the UK of more than £1 billion). The aim is to boost investment and innovation in the supply chain to the benefit of consumers by stopping supermarkets passing on excessive risk and costs to suppliers. The Adjudicator would be given the power to arbitrate disputes between retailers and suppliers, investigating anonymous complaints and taking sanctions against retailers who break the rules. The government is proposing to give the adjudicator the power to ‘name and shame’ supermarkets that are found to have broken the code, but not the power to fine.

“Farmers and small producers in Essex’s villages, market towns and countryside have been waiting for a long time for a body that will ensure they get a fair deal from supermarkets,” said CPREssex Chairman Tom Holme. “Supermarkets are here to stay, but a strong Adjudicator will help to ensure that they operate fairly, giving vital local food networks a better chance to compete.”

CPRE's own research, through the Mapping Local Food Webs programme, shows that, across the country, networks of suppliers, producers and retailers are providing high-quality local food and drink, contributing to the life and vitality of villages, towns and cities and helping to build a sense of local identity and distinctiveness. But many are also struggling against the overwhelming power of the big supermarket chains.

“The Groceries Code Auditor is a great suggestion,” says Peter Chillingworth, Agricultural and Countryside Co-ordinator for CPREssex. “Hopefully, it will address the long-standing problem of powerful supermarkets having producers, who in the main are relatively small in comparison with little ‘power’ to negotiate, to be screwed down on price and have produce turned down on delivery for minor blemishes.”

In Essex there are numerous individuals who are producing local food, for example Robert Moss, Primrose pork and sausages in Great Bromley, Verity Chamley and Michael Sharp with beef at Pebmarsh, Crapes Farm rare varieties of apples in Aldham, Freechooks free range eggs in Wakes Colne, to name but a few. Throughout the county many farmers sell through farm shops and farmers markets and currently do not have sufficient quantities or quality to sell regularly to supermarkets.  The CPRE would welcome the introduction of the promised Bill to Parliament at the earliest opportunity, and hopes that the Government will create an Adjudicator “with teeth”.

Wind Power stations

Climate change is one of the most pressing and complex issues we face today. CPRE has always been clear that we believe it will have a significant and long-term impact on the landscape and wider countryside. The question is not ‘should we do something to tackle climate change’ - we absolutely must. The question is how we can best do this without compromising our landscape, wildlife habitats or heritage.  

CPRE are not fundamentally opposed to onshore wind. We feel that wind should form part of a mix of renewable technologies uses of tackle climate change. However, the Government is placing too much emphasis on wind power stations. It should come clean on how many wind turbines are expected to be built and broadly where in the country they will be. The right places for wind power stations can be identified using landscape capacity studies and assessments. Local people need a voice in these decisions - but currently the number and scale of turbine applications coming through the planning system is drowning out that voice. To successfully tackle climate change requires careful and strategic planning, which empowers local people to identify the right places for onshore wind power stations. As with all development, we need to find a way to integrate it sustainably.

CPREssex Chairman, Tom Holme

Click here to listen to CPREssex Chairman Tom Holme interviewed on the subject of wind power stations on BBC Radio Essex, Monday 30 April 2012
 
http://youtu.be/2IM9xWjUoqQ

CPRE response to the final draft of the National Planning Policy Framework, revealed 27 March 2012

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) believes Ministers have made significant progress towards meeting the concerns raised by rural campaigners about the draft planning framework published last year, making some vital improvements that should achieve better planning outcomes.

We are pleased with the direction of travel on several of our key priorities, including the recognition of the value of undesignated countryside, the definition of sustainable development and the explicit acknowledgement that use of brownfield land is a core planning objective. Ultimately, however, the proof of the new policy framework will be how it works in practice. We and our supporters up and down the countryside will work with  local authorities and communities to try to secure the best results for what Planning Minister Greg Clark rightly referred to  as ‘our matchless countryside’.

Click this link to read CPRE National Office’s initial analysis of the National Planning Policy Framework:

Says CPREssex Chairman Tom Holme:

“I am breathing a little more easily than I was before the publication of the final draft NPPF.. Contrary to what was being indicated, it looks as if the Government has actually listened to and acted on some of the consultation about the first draft of the NPPF. The recognition of the value of our unprotected countryside is a big breakthrough and a credit to everyone who has campaigned so effectively to get this message across, both in our National Office and here in Essex: our Plans Group under David Green's able guidance, and everyone who has individually liaised with their MPs.

“There is, of course, no room for complacency: we still face big challenges, and we will continue to engage with local authorities and communities to achieve the best possible environmental outcomes.”