The Government is looking at reforming the ‘Landfill Communities Fund’, a national grant pot for community and wildlife projects.
The funding comes from ‘green tax’ on rubbish sent to be buried in landfill sites. In principle the landfill tax is a good thing, as it encourages recycling and reduces our contribution to climate change and it’s potentially catastrophic impacts on wildlife.
But the added bonus is that the money is redistributed to local environmental projects, including in many Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Over the last 2 years alone, over £105,000 from the Landfill Communities Fund has supported a range of wildlife projects we at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust are involved in.
This includes a 2 year restoration programme at Sandown Meadows Nature Reserve on the Isle of Wight. Owned and managed by HIWWT, this site, and others in the valley are being restored with a £50,000 grant from the Local Communities Fund via Biffa.
Riverside trees have been coppiced to encourage lush growth of bankside vegetation that will benefit a range of species including water voles, dragonflies and kingfishers. Over the past year volunteers have put in a tremendous amount of time and effort helping to restore an old floodplain pond that is now attracting a range of wildfowl like shoveler, snipe and mallard. Thanks to the funding, we were also able to remove the non-native invasive Parrot’s Feather plant from the ditches.
Given the Fund’s huge importance to community environmental projects such as the one at Sandown, it’s hardly surprising that many organisations like the Wildlife Trusts are very concerned about current government plans to ‘reform’ it.
There are growing fears that vital funding for these community projects will be reduced or removed under the guise of the Fund being ‘inefficient’. While the process could be better at getting more money to more community projects more efficiently, getting rid of it altogether shouldn’t be on the table.
Any reduction in this already over-subscribed fund will hit community environmental projects hard. Currently everything from footpaths in nature reserves through to new inner-city playgrounds are only being delivered because of this fund. And potential cuts to the Fund are even more concerning at a time when government spending on wildlife-rich green spaces is expected to fall across the board over the coming years.
We’re also concerned about government proposals to only fund short term projects. We know that what wildlife really needs right now is long term investment and protection. Planning for the future is the only way we’ll put nature on the path to recovery.
That’s why we at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust are responding to the government consultation on the Landfill Communities Fund, calling on them to keep this lifeline for community environmental projects.
**If you would like to respond to the consultation, you can read more on the government website, and email your views to Landfill-tax.consultation@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk by 10 June 2015**
Finally, my blog will shortly be moving to a new home to on Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust’s website.
So for my latest views on working in nature conservation in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and wider conservation issues in the UK, subscribe to my new blog here.
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Debbie Tann 