CPRE responded to the Government consultation on Environmental Principles and Governance, which asked how best to set up a governance framework that supports our environmental protection measures and creates new mechanisms to incentivise environmental improvement.

Our response covers at a high level:

• the environmental principles we believe must be included in a new Environment Act
• the means by which these principles should be defined, applied and, if necessary, altered
• the role a governance body should play in scrutiny and advice in Government policy
• enforcement mechanisms

The consultation specifically asked what the relationship should be between a new environmental governance body and the planning system. We argued strongly for any new body to advise on national and local planning policy, enforce environmental law, intervene in legal challenges, and hold Government and public bodies to account where there are failures to correctly apply environmental law.

CPRE also supported the responses to the consultation made by Greener UK and Wildlife and Countryside Link.