Following the Secretary of State statement that the statutory deadline set by Parliament for environmental targets will not be met, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has responded, saying that “the failure to meet the deadline is deeply regrettable”.

OEP is the new public body, created in November 2021, tasked with protecting and improving the environment by holding government and other public authorities to account.

Although recognising the issues that the administration has had to face in recent years, OEP chair Dame Glenys Stacey said: “An ambitious and comprehensive set of targets is needed urgently to tackle serious and concerning trends of environmental decline and to drive improvements that will benefit us all. With government committed to halt species decline by 2030, and given other environmental pressures, there is no time to lose.”

In October, the OEP wrote to the then Secretary of State about the importance of the 31 October deadline for environmental targets that are a part of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), providing advice on the thirteen target proposals and asked for a number of additional targets to be developed. However, even then the OEP noted that it believed them to be inconsistent in the levels of ambition across proposed targets.

Share Story: