Today's entry reports on the Environment Secretary's
suggestion to offset environmental harm from infrastructure
developments.
Saturday's Times carries an interview (subscription required) with Owen
Paterson MP, the reasonably new Secretary of State for the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In the interview he suggests
that a scheme could be set up where developers can obtain
environmental credits to offset the effects of infrastructure
schemes (and roads, houses and power stations are given as
examples) - so-called 'newt credits'. Owen Paterson said
"You could use environmental credit on huge projects like
high-speed rail or a power station or small ones like a farmer
wanting to extend a dairy. Usually the poor old newts lose out in
the end and only the lawyers win, this way everyone benefits.
"Those darn lawyers.
