A UK watchdog set to investigate a Stormont department’s environmental assessment regimes has had to scrap the plan - because the department has cut their funding.
The Office for Environmental Protection has sent a letter to Friends of the Earth outlining the “disappointing” news.
They told the NGO’s director James Orr: “I would like to thank you for your contribution and support to our work on environmental assessment regimes (EIA, SEA and HRA).
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“Unfortunately... our budget allocation from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is less than necessary to complete everything we had initially planned to do.
“This means we are having to make difficult decisions as we re-prioritise those areas where we can use our unique role to have maximum impact on protecting and improving the environment in Northern Ireland.
“As part of this, the difficult decision has been taken that we are not, at this stage, able to produce an environmental law report for Northern Ireland on environmental assessments as we had previously planned.
“DAERA has informed us that we can bid for more money during the year, which of course we will do. At the moment, we are not able to say which specific projects we will take forward with any additional funding we may secure.”
Mr Orr has shared his “alarm” and “deep concern” at a situation that has left the UK’s environment overseer unable to probe DAERA - because DAERA cut it’s funding.
He told us: “That DAERA was funding the OEP is bad enough but the withdrawal of that funding leads to an obvious conclusion that when you pay the piper you can call the tune.
“It is very convenient for DAERA to withdraw funding from the body that was investigating DAERA.
“The protection of special nature reserves in Northern Ireland has again been compromised by regulators who need to be independent of government.
“The calls for an independent Environmental Protection Agency have just suddenly got much louder.”
The OEP says the cut to its contributions from DAERA will not impact its ammonia emissions probe, in which it is looking into advice DAERA has been giving councils.
Its chief of staff, Richard Greenhous, said: “We have a budget from DAERA which is less than we assessed was necessary to complete all of the work we would wish to in NI.
“But DAERA has said that we can bid for more funds during the year, which we will be doing.
“We are working through what this means, and prioritising our work to fit the available budget while preparing to bid for additional funding.
“We will prioritise those areas of work where we can use our unique role to have maximum impact on protecting and improving the environment.
“This includes our investigation into the DAERA’s advice to local authorities on ammonia emissions, which will progress as planned.
“The budget situation means that we will not have the resources in place to produce NI reports for our ongoing project looking into environmental assessment regimes.”
DAERA has been contacted for comment.
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