Cut red tape hindering marine restoration to boost coastal towns
The group, which includes dozens of Tory MPs, called for regulation to be streamlined for projects such as the Solent Seascape Project, an initiative to restore saltmarsh, seagrass, oyster reefs, and seabird nesting sites between the Isle of Wight and mainland England.
Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins backed the report, calling it a 'valuable conservative contribution for consideration in our ongoing policy renewal programme'.
'Britain's once-buzzing seaside towns are facing growing economic and environmental pressures. The Conservatives are determined to set out a plan to protect our coastal communities and preserve them for future generations,' she said.
She added: 'Needless red tape continues to hamstring investment into marine restoration projects that could bring coastal communities jobs, nature-abundant habitats, and protection against the growing threats of climate change.'
The network is also calling on Labour to use the flood defences budget to fund more nature-based solutions and to designate more highly protected marine areas in English waters to protect against practices like bottom trawling, in which fishing gear is dragged across the seabed destroying habitats and scooping up a wide array of species.
They also want the Government to publish blue carbon codes – frameworks that define how carbon stored in marine habitats like seagrass and saltmarsh can be measured, verified and sold as credits – to unlock more funding for coastal resilience.
They say these moves will boost nature recovery as well as local economies through nature tourism and job creation as more projects could get off the ground.
Some 67% of English coastal towns are in the Office for National Statistics higher deprivation category and 3,500 properties are in areas at risk from coastal erosion.
Kitty Thompson, head of campaigns at CEN, said offering solutions for coastal communities could also help the Conservatives challenge Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
'The teal tide is not inevitable. Reform offers an easy outlet of anger for many coastal towns who have watched their neighbourhoods fade.
'But they won't give these communities the solutions they deserve. If the Conservatives offer a pragmatic, credible alternative that can deliver for coastal communities, then they can challenge Reform in coastal target seats, stopping them in their tracks,' she said.
Jacques Villemot, marine rewilding lead for Rewilding Britain, said the current marine licensing framework is outdated and called for the application process for projects to be streamlined.
'This framework urgently needs to be updated to support marine rewilding projects. Though necessary, in its current format marine licensing acts as a blocker, a laborious and costly process which was designed for approving developments like huge oil rigs and large wind farms,' he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
8 minutes ago
- Spectator
Truss takes a pop at Badenoch over Tory record
Uh oh. As if Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch didn't have enough on her plate with the rise of Reform eating into the Tory vote, now one of her predecessors has taken a pop at her. Liz Truss has taken to the august pages of the Telegraph to attack Badenoch, accusing the Leader of the Opposition of being 'not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters'. The gloves are coming off… Truss's scathing remarks follow a piece in the same newspaper by Badenoch, in which the Conservative leader said that Keir Starmer's Labour government was failing to learn from the mini-Budget that led to Truss's downfall. In an attempt to push back on Labour's narrative that the country's economic woes are the fault of the Tories, Badenoch wrote: For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books. But Truss was left rather unimpressed by the comparison, with the former Prime Minister and her allies convinced that her low-tax vision was the right thing for the country. In her latest piece, Truss wrote: 'She is wrong. Labour is doing the opposite of the mini-budget, which is why the country is headed for disaster.' Shots fired! She went on, describing how her previous policies put her in line with the thinking of US President Donald Trump, before lamenting: It is disappointing that, instead of serious thinking like this, Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives. I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated. Ouch! Will Badenoch bite back? Stay tuned…
South Wales Guardian
10 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Reform UK gets first police and crime commissioner after Tory defection
Rupert Matthews, who holds the post in Leicestershire and Rutland, was introduced on Monday as having joined the party from the Conservatives. Before being elected in 2021, he served two years as as a European Parliament member for the Tories. He told the event at the Reform UK headquarters in Westminster he had been a Conservative member for more than 40 years. Mr Matthews was quick to turn his fire on modern crime policy, where he said police officers were all too often working with 'one hand tied behind their back'. He said: 'I daily face a fight against crime. I see ordinary, hard-working people burgled, robbed and mugged. Shoplifting is getting out of control. Anti-social behaviour is turning too many of our town centres into an apocalyptic wasteland of lawless Britain.' Mr Matthews said the 'dark heart of wokeness' needed to be removed from the criminal justice system. He said politicians in Britain had taken inspiration from 'Lebanon and Libya' for their policies. He said: 'It's almost as if they've looked at countries like Lebanon and Libya, the policies that have led to them becoming failed states and thought 'that looks good, let's try that here in Britain'.' He continued: 'The self-serving, self-entitled liberal elite who have let our country down time after time after time, are now on notice. Their day is almost done. Be they Conservative or Labour governments, everyone knows our politicians have failed us all. 'They have let this country down. They have let the British people down. Enough. Now is time for Reform.' Mr Matthews, who has previously written books about UFOs and aliens, was mocked by political opponents. The Prime Minister's political spokeswoman said: 'Their big defection is very interesting, the fantastical and the unexplained. 'It's no surprise he's added Reform's fiscal plans to that list.' A Liberal Democrat source said: 'Elected Conservatives are becoming more and more like UFOs themselves – they're rarely if ever seen, and most people don't believe in them. 'Never mind life on Mars, it's unclear if there's life in the Conservative Party.' The party also announced retired prison governor of Wormwood Scrubs, Vanessa Frake-Harris MBE, had joined the party and would be contributing to its law and order taskforce. Ms Frake-Harris, who joined the prison service in 1986, detailed increases in escapes, attacks on prison officers and increases of drugs, weapons and mobile phone finds in the last year. She said: 'Successive governments, Conservative and Labour, have driven the prison service to its knees. Through lack of investment, support and an unwillingness to allow people who know what they are doing to get the job done.' She continued: 'Our prisons are in a crisis caused by Labour and the Conservatives. What have their solutions been? They have let out 10,000 prisoners out of jail early. To let criminals out of jail before they even serve their full sentence is a disgrace.' A Labour spokesperson said: 'It's farcical that Farage can't say what his policies are, how much they would cost, or how they would even work. Reform aren't serious and don't have a clue as to how they would address the challenges facing working people.' The Conservative Party has been approached for comment.
The National
16 minutes ago
- The National
Which MPs have received the most donations? See the full list
A secretive and influential Labour group, Labour Together, received a huge bulk of that – a third of the whole pot, in fact, at £2,669,832. Then there are various other party-affiliated groups – including Labour YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) and the Tory-uCarlton Club Political Committee, which regularly supports Tory MPs – which benefited from various five and six figure sums. But what about our elected MPs? Propping up the top of the list, perhaps unsurprisingly, are the Tory MPs who battled it out last year to be party leader. Despite coming second, Robert Jenrick has been gifted the most of any individual MP since July 5 last year at £762,936. This has included a donation of £35,000 from Quantum Pacific Corporation UK, which is owned by Idan Ofer, a London-based shipping and mining heir whose father was once Israel's richest man. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch was given the second largest amount at £725,812. This includes £150,000 from Lord Bamford of JC Bamford Excavators (JCB), who was a longtime Boris Johnson backer. Erstwhile contenders Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverley and Priti Patel received £409,669, £293,500 and £201,332 respectively. Other MPs who have received a hefty amount of money from donors includes Labour MP Clive Lewis, who has received £125,882 – much of which was from organisations such as Compass - Together for a Good Society Ltd, who support his bill looking to introduce the public ownership of water. Lib Dem MP and former leader Tim Farron has received a hefty £73,364 including over £60k from Faith in Public, a religious think-tank he started. Jeremy Corbyn is the ninth highest with nearly £70,000, over £60k of which came from Community Unity Ltd. Here is a full list of all donations from regulated donees to MPs since July 5 2025:
