The Department of Sustainable Development

By Alex Perkins, Liberal Democrat Canterbury City Council Leader

Amazing. Did you know that while one arm of the government is involved with the laudable ambition of trying to ensure that by 2010 as much as 10% of our energy is derived from sustainable sources, another department, the MoD, are desperately trying to stop them. That’s the sort of joined-up thinking that makes you proud to be British!

To be precise the Ministry of Defence have objected to a startling 413 of the last 861 applications that have been submitted for windfarms on the unlikely basis that their RADAR might confuse wind turbines with incoming enemy bombers. The fact that in just about every other country in the world they have overcome such minor teething problems with a simple computer screening device apparently caries no weight whatsoever in Whitehall.

Well enough of this stupidity. I reckon it is time we had a new Ministry – The Department for Sustainable Development – which, in the light of the dangers of global warming, climate change and rising sea levels we can task with stopping all of the other government departments from their woeful dithering and environmental incompetence.

Just think of all the common sense they could come out with. Proper promotion and funding of recycling and the phasing out of the production of non-recyclable materials. Funding for the proper insulation of homes to stop criminal levels of energy wastage. Proper environmental education in schools. And how about scrapping the daft system of airport taxes, which are only levied on passenger planes and, in their place, introducing a proper aviation tax on all aircraft including freight and private flights. It has to make sense. I know it is nice to think that your mange tout has been specially flown in to Manston on a fast plane from Kenya so that it is fresh as the moment it was picked – but have you ever stopped to think what all that burning of aircraft fuel is doing to the ozone layer?

This government promised us that the environment would be at the heart of its policies. True, it has done better than the last lot (could they have done worse?) but ultimately there are just too many government departments paying lip-service to environmental issues and no-one who has the clout to make the necessary legislation stick. We need a designated, powerful, properly funded Department which sits at the heart of government and makes sure that all the other departments are not doing things which are destroying the future of our planet and with it the entire human race. Sounds good - doesn't it!