Environment: Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

My Lords, I live in an AONB—the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB—and as I shall illustrate, my experience suggests that insufficient attention is being paid to this designation by the various offshoots of government, including at times, I regret to say, central government. By contrast, our county council in Suffolk has done its best to help us with its limited resources. I have one success to record and one serious current anxiety. The success concerns the attempted sale, 10 years ago, of a former military airbase, Bentwaters, within the AONB, not far from Woodbridge in Suffolk. During the Second World War the Royal Air Force built this airfield, intending it for use by fighter aircraft in defending us against attack by enemy bombers. It was not used for long and, with the arrival of the Cold War, was taken over by the American air force, the USAF, which had a second runway nearby, at what is now designated RAF Woodbridge. The Americans deployed a light jet bomber, the A-11, and its Cold War mission was to be available to attack Russian tanks should they start rolling across central Europe. That makes one realise how far we have moved on since then. Of course, this never happened, but the aircraft from these bases were used with devastating effect to destroy the Iraqi tanks as they withdrew from Kuwait in 1991. The A-11s never came back to Suffolk, but returned, as the Americans say, Stateside, and the Bentwaters airfield became redundant. Inevitably, the Bentwaters runway had just been resurfaced to the highest standards, at a cost of several million pounds. Understandably, perhaps, the Ministry of Defence then put the airfield on the market, hoping that it could be sold profitably as a commercial airport, for the benefit of their always-stretched budget. A private deal was done with the local district council to permit such a development, with a suspicion locally that some of the MoD profits might eventually accrue to the district council. The device was called a planning brief—a suspect document. My recollection is that little or no mention was made in this documentation of the fact that the airfield was in the AONB. At this point, my wife, who was a member of the county branch of the CPRE in Suffolk and active in planning matters, became involved. Her strongest argument—surely right—was that a commercial airport in the AONB should be out of the question by definition. She was helped by the fact that she had been brought up locally and spent some time between school and proceeding to Cambridge as a classical scholar working as a clerk on Orford Ness during the Second World War, where numerous important military experiments, including radar, were taking place. Her approach was to remind the public authorities of the AONB designation, of which most seemed quite unaware, and to speak always in a quiet and reasoned manner, with strong arguments. This was exactly the right style to convince local opinion and it was, in the Latin phrase, "““suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.””" It also helped her case that the former Royal Air Force base at Horsham St Faith in Norwich was being developed by a number of airlines, notably KLM, as a commercial airport, and Stansted was being planned. Finally, our local Member of Parliament, Mr John Gummer, who was always very clear-headed about these environmental issues, informed a meeting, which he convened one Sunday evening, that the enthusiasts for the airport had lost their case: there was no commercial support for it. The scheme was dropped, but there had been no considerable—or indeed any—visible support from central government in defence of the AONB in this argument. More recently we have been facing a different threat, which concerns me very much because of the Government’s decision to stop spending modest sums—a small contribution—to help to repair the walls of our tidal river, and their willingness to abandon large tracts of the coastline in the AONB to the sea, as I shall explain. I live 16 feet above sea level in the coastal village of Orford. I have 1.5 acres of orchard and garden and am not engaged in agriculture. The key to the problem is our tidal river, variously called the Alde and, in its lower reaches, the Ore, which flows from the west, in Snape Maltings, to the east, until reaching the coast at Aldeburgh. It then turns 90 degrees to the south to run parallel with the coastline from which the river is divided from the sea by a shingle spit—an unusual feature; it is Europe's longest vegetated shingle spit and has a certain fame among geologists. The river finally enters the sea at the mouth. There are various critical points. The first, just south of Aldeburgh, is where the sea broke through in the last serious floods in 1953 and did much damage. There is a fine Martello Tower, one of the largest in the series and a listed building. This place is called Slaughden. The river then continues 15 miles or so southwards to Shingle Street where it enters the North Sea. The river wall on the land side has been steadily maintained and the drained marshland behind it produces valuable food crops and is home to flocks of cattle and sheep. Your Lordships may care to be reminded that in most years we in this country are a net exporter of wheat and barley malt. However, the organs of central Government seem to have decided to abandon this terrain for reasons which are not altogether clear to me. Plans are being discussed to make a deliberate breach at Slaughden, which means goodbye to the Martello Tower, and to create a new tidal stream moving south towards Orford and Shingle Street against the incoming tide. The effect will surely be to silt up the river and that will lead to the loss of Havergate Island, a prized site owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which has contrived to persuade the avocet to make its home there. The avocet has been adopted by the RSPB as its national logo. Do the Government really want to have an open argument with the RSPB, which has millions of members who are very vocal? I remind the Minister that Her Majesty's Government have given the National Trust £1 million in the past decade to preserve Orford Ness, particularly as a habitat for numerous rare birds. Another loss would be the Orford Ness Lighthouse, which would be damaged by the changing pattern of water in the estuary. I therefore consulted officials in Trinity House to see if they were aware of the danger to this lighthouse and found—surprise, surprise—that no one in central government nor in the local authorities had troubled to inform them. Trinity House attaches importance to the continued existence of this lighthouse because of its role in guiding ships carrying oil from the northern isles to the Thames estuary. I have derived the impression—I regret to say a clear one—that some government departments in London have little or no understanding of the AONB designation and its scientific importance. I venture to suggest to the Minister that the Cabinet Office might be invited to send round a letter to all departments at a fairly senior level to remind them of the existence and relevance of the AONBs. I find it frankly amazing that a team organised by Defra is now making plans which would destroy our AONB and cause it to be overcome by the sea. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for making it possible to have this short debate, and I rest my case.