HC Deb 10 January 1989 vol 144 cc502-3W
Mr. Bermingham

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has yet received the report from the Nature Conservancy Council on the desirability and feasibility of privatising the 109 national nature reserves currently owned or part owned by the Nature Conservancy Council; and if he will make a statement.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State received the report of the Nature Conservancy Council's review of national nature reserves at the end of December. The report is now under consideration and a further announcement will be made in due course.

Mr. Nicholas Baker

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker),Official Report, 2 December 1988, column 424, if he will list the reasons why the 117 sites of special scientific interest, reported by the Nature Conservancy Council in its 14th annual report as having been damaged, were not protected from potentially damaging operations; and how many of these cases have resulted in legal proceedings being taken against alleged offenders.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

I am advised by the Nature Conservancy Council that the main specific causes of damage were as follows:

Number
Third party operators (including works outside an SSSI) 43
Resulting from, or ancillary to, planning permissions 14
Works under Channel Tunnel Act 1988 2
Emergency electrical repairs 1
Unforeseen consequences of pre-1981 nature reserve agreement 1
Miscellaneous operations 56

Many of the latter cases will have involved unwitting damage although in six cases the NCC has initiated legal proceedings.

As the NCC's annual report makes clear, in 79 cases the damage to the SSSI was only short term, from which the site may be expected to recover. This may also apply where a site has suffered long-term damage. In only 11 cases was the damage severe enough to result in the denotification of part of the SSSI.