Passing the Duchy on a Cornish Holiday
Feb 15, 2010 Environment, Freedom of Information
I’ve just returned from a week’s holiday in Cornwall. It was my first time along the Atlantic Cornish coast and I absolutely loved it. I did some epic walks along the cliffs of Crackington Haven then headed down past Tintagel, Rock, Padstow and on to St Ives with a few trips out to Penzance and [...]
New info on farmers’ subsidies
Nov 15, 2007 Environment
The amount of state aid given to each farmer for looking after landscape and wildlife is be made public for the first time according to an article in today’s Times. The article states the information is to be released today on the website of the Government’s landscape adviser Natural England. The information is to [...]
Gifts from the Oil men
Jul 9, 2007 Companies, Environment
I am very lucky to have some very good researchers working for me on a corruption monitoring project that is being sponsored by the Open Society Institute’s Justice Initiative. One of the areas we are investigating is the oil extractive industry and City University student Elena Egawhary is doing an excellent job researching the anti-corruption [...]
New Contact Details: DEFRA
Dec 13, 2006 Book Updates, Environment, Freedom of Information
Clive Porro
Access to Information Unit
Departmant for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
3-8 Whitehall Place
London SW1A 2HH
Clive.porro@defra.gsi.gov
Tel: 020 7270 8883
Email: accesstoinfo@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Your rights to inspect local records
Oct 9, 2006 Environment, Local Government
Do you know your rights when it comes to inspecting local authority records? Most people in the UK do not.
Local authorities are required by section 8 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975 to allow any person to search in the Local Land Charges Register on payment of the prescribed fee, currently £11.00 per parcel [...]
Scotland to map noise
Oct 9, 2006 Environment
Kable’s Government Computing reports that the Scottish Executive is to produce maps showing environmental noise around major cities and transport networks. The maps will be produced in line with an EU Environmental Noise Directive that requires noise maps to be produced by June 2007. The Scottish maps will cover areas with over 250,000 people such [...]
Buncefield Oil disaster reports
Jun 27, 2006 Environment, Useful sites
The Environment Agency has published several online resources about the ongoing investigation into the Buncefield oil disaster of 11 December 2005:
Buncefield Investigation – a collection of the main reports.
Buncefield latest news
Oil Fire: Health & Safety reports
Dec 13, 2005 Companies, Environment
Today’s article in the Daily Telegraph ‘Firemen battle on amid blast fears’ contained an interesting point:
“It emerged that the Health and Safety Executive had served an
improvement notice on one of the operators of the Buncefield oil depot, near Hemel Hempstead, four years ago amid concerns about the containment of an aviation fuel tank.”
This raises [...]
Hurricane Katrina and FOI
Sep 12, 2005 Environment
The poor response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA shows in stark terms the consequences of diverting all money to the war on terror while ignoring more prosaic realities at home. America is not unique in diverting funds this way. In the UK, we have seen parts of London stripped bare as police are [...]
National Land Use Database
Aug 10, 2005 Environment
The National Land Use Database provides information about two projects: Previously Developed Land (PDL) and Baseline. According to the website, PDL collects data on vacant and derelict sites and other previously developed land and buildings that may be available for redevelopment in England. Baseline aims to develop a comprehensive and up-to-date land use map.
I found [...]
