Agenda item

The Chair to advise the Committee of any items on which members of the public have requested to speak and advise those members of the public present of the details of the Council’s public participation scheme.

For those members of the public who have submitted any questions or statements, please note, a three minute time limit applies to each speaker and you will be asked to speak before Councillors debate the issue.

Temporary measures during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Due to the Government guidance on measures to reduce the transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19), we will holding meetings in a virtual manner which will be live webcast on our website. Members of the public will still be able to register to speak and ask questions, which will then be read out by the Governance and Democracy Case Manager during Public Question Time and will either be answered by the Chair of the Committee, or the relevant Portfolio Holder, or be followed up with a written response.

Submission from Mr David Redgewell

We were still very concerned about provision of safe stopping places in Taunton town centre essential on journeys from Castle Way, The Parade and Corporation Street. Before lockdown we were very concerned about the lack of social distancing among passengers in Taunton town centre and the risk of super spreading and we would like to see Somerset West and Taunton Council through its bus scrutiny commission to work on improving bus passengers interchange facilities.  The vision for Taunton development which we welcomed but needed a lot of good urban design work showed no provision for bus and coach interchange facilities. We felt there was a need for a Transport vision for the Town centre with a bus gate included on East Reach, The Parade with access for walking, cycling, disabled vehicles and public transport. And bus passenger’s facilities similar to the new bus boulevard interchange on Flemming Way in Swindon or in Cheltenham with bus and coach facilities in Royal Wells, The Promenade with real-time passenger’s information and in the high street.

Somerset West and Taunton Council needed to bid for Government grant through the South West Transport Board for bus and coach interchange facilities in Taunton town centre. We needed to make sure any future plans for the development of Taunton Town Centre included public transport interchange facilities.  
Q) Could you please explain what bus provision and infrastructure there would be in the new development of Taunton Town Centre?

Cheltenham had good bus passenger’s facilities in Royal Wells and The Promenade. In Exeter a brand new bus station was opening soon and a brand new bus station had opened in Gloucester as a transport hub with a second phase to link to the railway station and a new bus interchange in Weston Super Mare was to be constructed all with Department for Transport government grant. Swindon had just been given £25 million to regenerate the town centre and there was a new bus and coach station on Flemming Way. On railway service we welcomed the on-going work on Taunton Railway station public transport interchange but as first group had pointed out not a replacement for good bus interchange facilities in the town centre and improvement to the station and work on Wellington railway station. We hoped to see the West Somerset railway line reopened this summer between Bishops Lydeard, Watchet and Minehead. With a Dmu shuttle from Taunton. 

Bus service to Taunton racecourse vaccinations centre. 

On the issue of public transport access to which we were very concerned the Taunton racecourse vaccinations centre had only a limited bus service by route 99 Taunton to Chard service operated by First Group South West the buses of Somerset every 3 hours.

 Lucy Travis of Somerset catch the bus campaign has been contacted by patients in 70, 80 and 90 who had struggled to access the centre. Who had raised the issue with Somerset County Council and First Group who were going to run a shuttle bus service and then divert the park and ride bus service to the site and required an extra gate to be opened for bus service to turn around unfortunately, this was blocked by Somerset NHS Trust Clinical Commission Group Vaccinations Lead.

With 900 patients a day apart from the 99 bus and a walk from First South West service 6 from Chestnut Drive the buses of Somerset than a 20 minute walk. 

The only provision was slinky bus or community bus which was not turn up and go service and had to be booked in advance and had limited capacity. 

Q) Could Somerset West and Taunton Council please work with Somerset County Council the transport authority, Somerset Clinical Commission Group, NHS Trust Vaccinations Lead, local MPs and First Group to put a public bus on the racecourse vaccinations centre?

In the same way as a shuttle bus was being operated by Somerset County Council, Mendip District Council, Somerset Clinical Commission Group between Wells bus station, Shepton cenotaph bus interchange and the Bath and West Showground vaccinations centre operated by First Group West of England Mendip Explorer buses. Every 30 mins. A similar service was operating between Bath Spa bus and coach station and the vaccinations centre at Bath racecourse with a bus service every 20 operated by First Group West of England Bath buses. We do hope that some urgent progress could be made to Taunton bus station especially as the next group of patients were disabled people and wheelchair accessible buses were very important. 

Submission from Mr Bruce Heywood on agenda item 16, Motion to appeal to reverse UK Government emergency authorisation to use neonicotinoids on sugar beet

The use of neonics was a highly emotive subject because of the harm and potential harm they could do to bees and other insects. I believe they should be available only when absolutely necessary as part of the arable farmer’s toolkit to help control the aphids that transmit the Virus Yellows to sugar beet plants, and the Barley Yellow Dwarf disease transmitted to cereals. To ban them out of hand was not wise, instead they should be tightly regulated and controlled. After all they were the only really effective aphides that there were available to growers.

Last year was a bad year for virus yellows which hit the sugar beet crop hard because of the high aphid numbers, with some farmers losing up to 80% of their crop. If farmers have another bad year it would mean the possible abandonment of growing sugar beet altogether in this country.

Where would much of our sugar come from then? Brazil, India, Thailand, China? What guarantees that it would be grown to the control standards that we have in the UK? How could we be sure that there were no chemicals such as neonics or organophosphates used in its production that left residues in the sugar?

Having no sugar beet and sugar produced in this country would mean three important issues, firstly the enormous carbon footprint shipping sugar across the globe and secondly it would mean money leaving this country instead of staying within our own economy, and thirdly most important of all, it would mean that the problems of growing a sugar producing crop, such as sugar cane, were simply moved into countries where production standards and controls were nothing like we have in this country. So please consider the enormous harmful environmental impact that that would generate. Moving the problems to other countries was to me was not a responsible thing to do, but just hypocrisy.

Submission from Mr Richard Payne on agenda item 16, Motion to appeal to reverse UK Government emergency authorisation to use neonicotinoids on sugar beet

As a West Somerset farmer, I am emailing in respect of Somerset West and Taunton’s proposed motion against the emergency authorisation of neonicotinoid seed treatment on sugar beet. It would appear that this motion had been tabled after consulting a very narrow body of research and data, emanating from organisations who were largely opposed to any form of plant protection, often NOT based on current science.

Firstly, it was important to note that there was no sugar beet grown in the south west and as such indicates the lack of understanding surrounding such a complex argument. It also represented the “thin end of the wedge,” which may lead to more unilateral decisions for the SW which did not take into account national and international science and ‘best practice.’ I therefore wanted to take this opportunity to set out why farmers, the NFU and British Sugar made this application and counter some of the misinformation that was being reported. 

I would also like to point out that I did not grow sugar beet, but have had to give up growing oil seed rape due to the neonic ban, as the crop could not survive cabbage stem flea beetle attacks in the autumn. This had severe financial implications for many farming businesses, as OSR was the only profitable break crop in our rotation. As OSR was a flowering crop, we as farmers could understand the merit in the ban as we needed, and indeed wanted to protect bees more than most. But not for sugar beet and for cereals. Both were non-flowering crops, and did NOT attract bees throughout the life of the crop. Sadly, the ban had encouraged more insecticide spraying to combat aphids, which in my opinion was far more harmful for the environment.

Virus Yellows disease was having an unprecedented impact on Britain’s sugar beet crop, with some growers experiencing yield losses of up to 80% for the 2020 crop. The home-grown sugar beet industry had been, and continued to, work incredibly hard to find long-term solutions to Virus Yellows disease. As such, the government’s consultation on gene editing was incredibly welcome, as changes in this policy would help to accelerate some of the work in this area, including genetic resistance and tolerance to diseases such as Virus Yellows.

The government’s decision to grant emergency use in 2021 therefore demonstrated their understanding of how serious this disease was for our home-grown sugar industry and for the viability of farm businesses. Of course, there were strict conditions in terms of the use being limited and controlled. The terms of the Emergency Authorisation dictated that the product would be used in a limited and controlled way. This included:

• The authorisation was limited to 120 days

• The product would only be used if the independent Roth Amsted Research prediction model reached the threshold that indicated aphid numbers would cause a significant problem for the 2021 sugar beet crop 

• Reduced rate of the product (25% reduction in rate)

• Only cereal crops (which were non-bee attractive) could be planted within 22 months of the sugar beet crop being planted and no oilseed rape crop could be planted within 32 months of the sugar beet crop being planted 

• No further use of the product was permitted on the same field within 46 months of the treated sugar beet seed being planted

• Growers would adhere to industry-recommended herbicide programmes to minimise the number of flowering weeds in treated sugar beet crops and reduce the risk of indirect exposure of pollinators to neonicotinoid seed treatments. 

It must be reiterated that this authorisation was only for the sugar beet crop of England and not for fodder or bioenergy beet grown more extensively across the whole of the UK. Consequently, the extent and use of the neonicotinoid product would be limited to those counties that grow the sugar crop, and treatments then only applied if needed, on the trigger of the independent Virus Yellows forecast in February 2021.

It was important to note that 13 EU countries had also granted derogations to use neonicotinoids in 2021, demonstrating the scale of the Virus Yellows disease throughout Europe and the need to take action as a matter of urgency to fight this disease. If use were not also granted in the UK, it would see our own growers displaced by imported sugar beet or cane that may be grown using this product.

I am not sure what research or lobbying had been put before the councillors proposing this appeal, nor was that their expertise greater or more current than EU wide scientific thinking.

Councillor Dixie Darch gave the following response:-

Thank you Messrs. Heywood and Payne for your letters in response to the proposed motion. It was always helpful for councillors to hear a range of perspectives in order to make an informed decision and it was particularly welcome to hear the views of farmers.

The use of neonicotinoids was indeed an emotive subject and some social media campaigns had failed to set out the complex issues behind the decision. For this reason, the motion presented this evening with supporting evidence dealt directly with the Government document published on January 8^th; it acknowledged the limits and controls set out in the authorisation and avoided an emotive stance. 

Whilst it was reported that some farmers had lost up to 80% of their crop, according to Farmers Weekly (December 2020), overall production was down by 25%, suggesting rates vary with individual farmers. We explicitly acknowledged the impact on sugar beet farmers, particularly given the potentially challenging situation of post-Brexit trade arrangements (as stated in point 7 under “Council notes”). You were right about the risk that UK sugar beet could be replaced by imports from other countries which had less stringent environmental standards and we addressed this in point 2 of our resolution, requesting the inclusion of a message to MPs “that they urged Government to support domestic sugar beet producers by ensuring all sugar imports were produced, at minimum, to the same environmental standards as apply to UK sugar producers.” The motion also acknowledged that EU countries had authorised neonicotinoid use.  

We also acknowledged the controls in place to limit the application of neonicotinoids and restrictions on planting after use. However, our view was that this authorisation was a short-term solution which risked exacerbating the longer-term crisis of insect decline, new evidence of which had emerged since January 8th. The concern was larger than sugar beet: it was about the global ecological and climate crisis. According to DEFRA, research estimated the value of the UK’s 1,500 species of pollinators to crops at £400-680 million per year due to improved productivity and we put this at risk by use of neonics. 

Given that this pesticide remained in the soil after application where it could harm invertebrates and potentially find its way into water courses, we saw alternative support for sugar beet farmers including allowances for crop loss within contracts and acceleration of blight resistant strains and/or biological controls as the better way forward. It would not be unreasonable for the consumer to take a short-term price increase on sugar, the over consumption of which contributed to a number of serious health conditions, costing lives and NHS resources.

Clearly the “bigger picture” encompassed the environment and climate change, and the effect of neonicotinoids pesticides on the pollinators, although relatively local, should not be discounted or down-played.

We could assure you that no lobbying had taken place, either to us as proposers of this motion, or by us to other councillors. The latter had received the document included in the Full Council papers and the link to the Government document, which most would have read as well as carrying out their own research. SW&T councillors were regularly presented with conflicting viewpoints and made their own independent judgments. Our interest was in the environment and global climate change, any change had to start somewhere: this was the “bigger picture” and rest assured we were aware of it. An interesting debate was likely and we looked forward to hearing all views.