The New South Wales, Australian ban, which comes into effect in July 2017 is welcome news for animal rights campaigners across the world as it signifies a move towards a society which embraces the welfare of all animals and respects all lives.

Animals Australia Chief Investigator Lyn White said in light of the NSW ban: “The scale of the cruelty and deaths that this industry inflicted over many decades is immeasurable. The only appropriate response was to shut it down.

“But this is not just about animals. Inquiries have revealed that many participants in this industry engaged in criminal behaviours such as live baiting and the drugging of dogs to win races. All of society is safer for its closure,” she added.

With this encouraging result for Australia’s anti-racing community, UK groups are hopeful that their work will lead to a similar ban on greyhound racing here.

In countries such as Jamaica and South Africa, the practice of greyhound racing has never been legalized, and in the US the sport is now illegal in 39 of 50 states.

One of the most vociferous campaign groups in the UK, Caged North West is desperate to see commercial greyhound racing outlawed, however it understands that this can’t happen overnight due to the risk of unwanted dogs being killed.

A 2014 joint report by the League Against Cruel Sports and Grey2K USA Worldwide entitled The State of Greyhound Racing in Great Britain: A Mandate For Change, published figures showing that the number of racing greyhounds bred in Britain has been steadily declining since 2006.

It reported that in 2013, 251 greyhound litters were registered to race with the National Stud Book, a decline of 58% since 2006, however the number of adult dogs registered to race on tracks registered by the industry’s governing body the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) has not fallen as dramatically, dropping  from 10,101 in 2006, to 7,520 in 2013 – just 26%.

Figures quoted in a parliamentary inquiry report under Retirement, Rehoming and Traceability, suggested that according to the GBGB the number of active greyhounds was 14,095 in 2014.

Caged North West believes this figure is grossly underestimated, and that all dogs could be safely rehomed by mid 2020 if a ban was to take immediate effect with a four-year phase out, and with the inclusion that no more greyhounds are imported from Ireland, or introduced into greyhound racing from British breeders.

Around 80% of greyhounds in Britain are born in Ireland and many Irish greyhounds are sent to China, (Macau), Pakistan, Spain, Argentina and other countries where dogs suffer horrific conditions and treatment, or death due to a lack of animal welfare regulation.

Rita James, of Caged North West said: “There is currently no legislation to prevent dogs purposely bred for the racing industry being exported to countries that have no animal welfare laws.

“Greyhounds are massively overbred putting them at great risk of export for racing purposes and commercial gain. Campaign groups and advocates across the world are uniting to urge the Irish government to introduce a new law to stop the exports, but despite the constant pressure.

“The Department of Agriculture Food and Marine in Ireland, and the Irish Greyhound Board are resisting showing any compassion, and proving to be completely un-interested in the welfare of the dogs.”

She said that there was no desire to risk a sudden high spillage of dogs to a level where greyhound rescues would be overrun, but said that the risk of dogs being destroyed by their owners and the exportation of dogs to countries with no animal welfare laws would need to be eliminated.

With its beginnings in 1926, the first dedicated greyhound racing track was Belle Vue, in Greater Manchester. Currently there are 24 licensed greyhound racing tracks in the UK where races take place under the GBGB Rules of Racing, but it is thought there are also nine independent unlicensed tracks.

Anti-race campaigners cite problems including poor track surfaces, cheap sand and poor surface drainage, which causes the dogs to have horrific falls; traps not being appropriately maintained land insecure tracks which frightened dogs have escaped from.

Other issues of concern include faulty air conditioning in holding kennels at tracks, flooding of holding kennels, doping of dogs and dogs racing while carrying old injuries.

Injury figures are not currently available from GBGB, who have said they will release these in 2018, though a parliamentary inquiry obtained figures from the Racecourse Promoters Association stating that between 2012 – 2014, there were 1,300 deaths and 2,000 hock/wrist injuries at licensed tracks alone. This was based on information from 22 of 24 tracks.

Rita James added: “The view that greyhound racing is corrupt is becoming more widespread, and is not just one taken on by anti-racing people. Most recently, small time greyhound trainers are turning against their own governing body while making accusations of corruption, including money being misused. This enforces our views, in that funds are generally misdirected, primarily excluding the welfare of the dogs.

“The gambling establishments rake in the cash – they are the reason why greyhound trainers and why excessive numbers of dogs exist, bringing serious welfare issues.”

Greyhounds leaving UK shores for Asia are of great concern to campaigners. In the last few weeks a greyhound being boiled alive in Asia went viral, and in Vietnam the dogs are often given a drug called Ecotraz, causing them immense pain. They are killed and then thrown into a pit when no longer needed.

Campaign groups like Caged North West, Shut Down Belle Vue and Birmingham Greyhound Protection hope to make members of the public more aware of the plight of these greyhounds and want to bring about publically-supported change, potentially a total ban reflecting the decision of the NSW government.

The greyhound racing licensing body GBGB claims on its website that £2.5 billion is wagered each year on greyhound racing. In 2013 the body donated £1.4 million to the Retired Greyhound Trust, which rehomed 3,742 ex-racers in that year. 

The GBGB says it works closely with major welfare charities via the Greyhound Forum. This includes representatives from the RSPCA, Blue Cross and Dogs Trust. The GBGB says it takes safety and welfare very seriously, and “cares passionately about greyhound welfare and is committed to working to raise standards of care still further.”

Laura Briggs is the Ecologist’s UK news reporter

An overwhelming majority of the public would support local renewable energy projects, including wind turbines, if they were owned and controlled by the community.

More than two-thirds – 67% – of the 2,000 UK adults polled by ICM last month said they would support local community-owned renewable energy projects such as solar panels and wind turbines, with just 8% in opposition.

This includes not just Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party supporters, but also those who identify as Conservatives. Support among Conservative voters increased from 62% in 2015 to 65% in 2016.

A staggering 78% of the public thought that the Government should do more ‘to help local communities generate their own energy, with profits staying in the area’. Just 6% opposed this. Again, support among Conservative voters increased, from 73% in 2015 to 76% in 2016.

Two-thirds (68%) of respondents say that they are prepared to pay a small surcharge each year on their energy bill to fund an expansion of community energy, with just 15% opposing this.

Goivernment should reinstate support for community renewables

The findings directly challenge the Government’s recent decisions to slash subsidies for small, local renewable energy schemes and to bar investors from access to social investment tax relief.

While 58% believe that the Government should change its mind and once again offer tax relief to those individuals who take the risk of investing in community energy, with just 12% against. Backing for these measures was higher still among Conservative supporters.

More generally, more than half (52%) of those surveyed said they would support a wind turbine within two miles of their home – nearly three times as many as the 18% who would oppose it. Support among Conservative supports increased from 43% in 2015 to 47% in 2016.

Support for solar farms was even more overwhelming: with 61 percent of the public supporting a project within two miles of their home, and just 11% against.

Ramsay Dunning, Managing Director at Co-operative Energy, which commissioned the research, said: “This poll shows that the Government’s recent hostility to further growth in onshore wind turbines and solar farms is out of kilter with the vast majority of the UK public, including Conservative Party supporters.

“Moreover, people want to see growth in local, community-owned projects and are willing to pay a small surcharge on their bills to help this happen.”

Just 25p per year could finance huge expansion in energy coops

Co-operative Energy and the Energy Savings Trust have previously calculated that for just 25p per customer per annum, the UK could grow its community energy capacity from 200MW to 3,000MW in a few short years.

That enormous potential gives the newly formed Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and its ministers “a fantastic opportunity to tap the public’s goodwill and provide a significant boost to the UK’s social enterprise economy”, Dunning added.

Co-operative Energy launched in 2010 and now has over 250,000 customers, over half of them Co-operative members, and over 500 colleagues. It is part of The Midcounties Co-operative, the largest independent Co-operative in the UK.

A primary aim of Co-operative Energy is to drive the expansion of community energy generation projects. For example, it provides a secure market for community energy through ‘power purchase agreements’ with projects in the sector.

Supported community energy projects range from co-operatives through to charitable trusts and crowd-sourced debt offerings. Supported technologies include wind, solar PV and hydroelectric.

Igniting an energy revolution which places communities at its heart

Will Dawson, Chair of the Community Energy Coalition and Head of Energy at Forum for the Future, said: “As we embark on the fourth Community Energy Fortnight from 3-18 September 2016, I am really pleased to see support across political views grow even higher for communities owning and benefiting from their own energy projects.”

The Community Energy Coalition (CEC) was formed in 2011 by some of the UK’s most trusted institutions including the Church of England, the Women’s Institute (WI), the National Union of Students (NUS), the National Trust, The Co-operative Energy, Community Energy England and Forum for the Future.

It aims to ignite an energy revolution which places communities at its heart. It strives for a clean, affordable and secure energy system for all, by helping communities across the UK to own, generate and save energy together.

“CEC members see a rapid switch to renewable energy communities and energy efficient homes and businesses as vital for Britain’s future”, said Dawson. “We want the government to stand with us and do more to help British communities take control of their energy locally.”

Community Energy Fortnight: The fourth Community Energy Fortnight runs from 3rd and 18th September 2016, giving people the chance to visit community energy projects in their local area, all of which are actively engaged in generating and/or saving energy for the benefit of local people. Events include visits to wind farms and solar parks, and energy efficiency workshops, all aimed at getting people involved in this growing sector.

Oliver Tickell is contributing editor at The Ecologist.

Many readers will have seen the interesting Panorama programme on the poor safety record at Sellafield broadcast on BBC1 last night.

The BBC press release stated this was a “special investigation into the shocking state of Britain’s most hazardous nuclear plant” – and it certainly was.

The most important of several whistleblower revelations was that the previous US managers had been shocked at the state of the plant when they took over its running in 2008.

Although the programme producers are to be congratulated for tackling the subject, it was only 30 minutes long and tells only a fragment of the whole sorry story.

This article tries to give more background information, and importantly, more analysis and explanation. The full story would require several books, and provide exceedingly painful reading.

What is reprocessing for?

First, ‘reprocessing’ is the name given to the physico-chemical treatment of spent nuclear fuel as carried on at Sellafield in Cumbria since the 1950s. This involves the stripping of metal cladding from spent fuel assemblies, dissolving the inner uranium fuel in boiling nitric acid, chemically separating out the uranium and plutonium isotopes and storing the remaining dissolved activation products in large storage tanks.

It is a dirty, dangerous, unhealthy, expensive process which results high radiation doses to the 9,000 workers employed at Sellafield.

The initial rationale for reprocessing in the 1950s to the 1980s was the Cold War demand for fissile material to make nuclear weapons. Several studies at that time stated that reprocessing was a “dominating edifice of policy”.

As a result, strategy-setting, regulatory functions, government reorganisations, and health and safety considerations always had to revolve around it. All Government Departments had to operate within the “rigid framework imposed by the imperative of reprocessing.” Reprocessing decisions were always made at Cabinet level.

The domination of reprocessing even extended to official inquiries. For example, in the late 1970s, the Windscale Inquiry was set up set up to determine a planning application to build the THORP plant. Inter alia, it had to assess the best way to handle spent nuclear fuel. Its 1978 Report strongly defended reprocessing. This was a nonsense even then (see BOX), but it held sway as nuclear defence considerations were paramount.

Environmental consequences

The Sellafield plant is host to several hundred radioactive waste streams and processes which result in large discharges of radioactive liquids to sea and even larger emissions of radioactive gases and aerosols to the atmosphere. Raised levels of childhood leukemias in villages nearby are considered to be linked to the inhalation and ingestion of these radionuclides.

Sellafield, and a similar plant at La Hague, France, continue to be, by some margin, the largest sources of radioactive pollution in the world. For example, the Irish Sea is the most radioactively polluted sea in the world with about half a tonne of plutonium sitting on its seabed from reprocessing.

The collective doses to the world’s population from the long-lived gaseous nuclides C-14, and I-129, and from medium-lived Kr-85 and H-3 (tritium) emitted at Sellafield are huge and are estimated by radiation biologists to cause tens of thousands of early deaths throughout the world.

Another result is the 140 tonnes of unneeded, highly radiotoxic plutonium (Pu) stored on site at a cost of £50 million a year. Pu is fissile and, in the wrong hands, the quantity stored at Sellafield could be made into some 20,000 nuclear warheads: it is a serious proliferation danger.

The sorry history of reprocessing

The history of Sellafield (previously named Windscale) is littered with accidents (some very serious), and hundreds of leaks, spillages, scandals, cover-ups, secret reports, redactions, plant failures, botched management contracts, and examples of gross financial mismanagement.

These have been discussed in scores of critical reports by various Commons Committees, by the NAO, by commissioned consultancies, and by many environmental groups. Also by reports from several European Governments, by the HSE, by RWMAC, and not least by several TV programmes in the 1990s alleging political dirty tricks and manipulation of Government Ministers.

Especially serious are the ~20 large holding tanks at Sellafield containing thousands of litres of extremely radiotoxic fission products. Discussing these tanks, the previous management consortium Nuclear Management Partners stated in 2012:

“there is a mass of very hazardous [nuclear] waste onsite in storage conditions that are extraordinarily vulnerable, and in facilities that are well past their designated life.”

The National Audit Office (NAO) stated these tanks pose “significant risks to people and the environment”. One official review published in The Lancet concluded that, at worst, an explosive release from the tanks could kill two million Britons and require the evacuation of an area reaching from Glasgow to Liverpool. These dangerous tanks have also been the subject of repeated complaints from Ireland and Norway who fear their countries could be contaminated if explosions or fires were to occur.

In short, the practice of reprocessing at Sellafield has been and remains a monumental national disgrace.

The final irony is that, if different spent fuel policies had been chosen nuclear reprocessing would have been quite unnecessary.

The policy horror of the Windscale Inquiry

The Windscale Inquiry, published in 1978, offered an important opportunity to put an end to the UK’s absurd reprocessing policy. So how did it come to conclude that nuclear reprocessing was actually a good way to deal with spent fuel? Largely by using unproved assertions, unsupported assumptions and unwise predictions.

For example, it asserted impending uranium ore shortages and high uranium prices, despite evidence to the contrary even then. It asserted that the mooted glassification of HLW liquid wastes was the best way to proceed despite zero evidence that it would actually work, and despite testimony from Canadian scientists that untreated ceramic spent fuel was a much better waste form than glassified wastes.

Perhaps the most egregious assumption concerned the wisdom of storing spent fuel under water for relatively long periods. Such storage meant that spent fuel, especially Magnox fuel, had to be reprocessed, as the degradation of its cladding rendered it unfit for long term dry storage. Indeed, all or almost all, of the Report’s recommendations on the rationale for reprocessing were later shown to be incorrect.

A major procedural flaw which probably explained much of the nonsense of the report was that Justice Parker, who knew next to nothing about nuclear technology, was advised by two senior advisors from UKAEA and MOD who sat on either side of him throughout the inquiry.

This inquiry is perhaps an extreme example of policy-led ‘science’. It is much preferable of course to have science-led policies. But when it comes to nuclear power, this rarely, if ever, occurs, even today.

After the Windscale Inquiry’s report, the policy of wet storage was maintained – in major part to ensure the continuation of reprocessing, as fissile material for weapons has not existed as a rationale at least since the early 1990s.

MOX Fuel – a solution looking for a problem

The next purported justification for reprocessing was the need to use plutonium as a reactor fuel in mixed oxide (MOX) fuels. However again this was and is a mirage as nuclear companies have repeatedly been unable to manufacture MOX fuel to the exacting standards required for Pu fuels.

In addition, nuclear utilities in Europe and the US have generally refused to use it, unless forced to do so by Government agencies. One reason is economics: MOX fuel costs about four to five times more than ordinary fuel per tonne – and delivers 20% less energy output per tonne.

Another is that spent MOX fuel presents serious problems for utilities. It cannot be reprocessed as it is far too radioactive, and it has to be stored for 15 years rather than five in cooling ponds as it is very hot when it exits reactors. This triples the cost of storing spent fuel. It also causes high radiation exposures to workers – even to managers in distant offices.

All in all, MOX fuel is a bad idea, but even in 2016, such is the dominance of nuclear thinking in Britain, that much evidence to the Parliament’s recent POST report was still suggesting MOX fuel as a solution to deal with the UK’s large unwanted plutonium stocks.

Clearly, there better ways of dealing with spent nuclear fuel. About 90% of nuclear fuel annual arisings around the world are not reprocessed but stored either in ponds or, increasingly, in dry storage facilities. Only the UK and France still carry out commercial reprocessing. This not to say that storage is problem-free or is a final solution but it does not suffer from the massive immediate dangers of reprocessing.

Where are we now with reprocessing?

The incoherence of reprocessing is gradually catching up with nuclear utilities and agencies, as the annual tonnages of reprocessed fuels are slowly declining. Most European utilities (apart from those in France and the UK) stopped ordering their fuels to be reprocessed about a decade ago.

The UK and France still carry out reprocessing, but its days are numbered – at least in Britain. Although all Magnox power stations are now closed, their spent fuels have not yet all been reprocessed. The latest NDA draft Business Plan shows its Post Operational Clean Out (POCO) plan lasting until 2023 with Magnox reprocessing ending in 2020.

With about 3,000 tonnes of Magnox fuel still to be reprocessed it could achieve the 2020 date, if the plant managed to continue operating at the current rate. But the Magnox plant is 50 years old, and could break down at any time (as amply shown in the Panorama programme) so there is no guarantee of meeting the final closure date.

As for AGR fuel, the NDA stated in its draft Business Plan that the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) would close in November 2018, mainly because of the significant costs required to keep it going longer (including new HLW tanks costing £500 million) – costs that NDA said could not be justified.

The NDA stated its Post Operational Clean-Out plans (POCO) and timetable for THORP closure were now mapped out and firm, but whether these will be adhered to is a moot point. The problem is that the UK’s 14 AGR reactors are expected to continue for another ~10 years on average (even although most are past their sell-by dates).

This means at least another ~5,000 tonnes of AGR fuel will need to be catered for. The NDA has stated that this fuel will be stored at Pond 5 at Sellafield by chemically treating its pond water with strong alkalis. Will this work? Again it’s hard to say as no safety case for the long-term storage of AGR fuel in treated ponds has been published.

Of course, the NDA should really be building dry storage facilities like those at Sizewell. (Sizewell, a PWR reactor, stores all its spent PWR fuel initially in ponds then in its dry stores.) However its latest management plan omits any mention of dry storage. This is despite the fact that, back in the 1990s the former company, Scottish Nuclear, had advanced plans for such dry stores for their AGR fuels. BNFL, with Government connivance, ensured these plans were abandoned. It is instructive that no plans for the mooted new UK nuclear power stations include reprocessing their spent fuel.

Perhaps the most eye-watering revelations in the BBC programme were that, although reprocessing was going to cease, the waste containment functions of Sellafield would continue for another 110 years at an estimated cost of up to £162 billion. In other words, the mess of Sellafield will mainly be paid for by future generations. This is utterly unethical and an affront to any notion of sustainability.

Why did Britain reprocess for so long?

Mostly because of institutional mindsets, as the need to reprocess was deeply buried within the core beliefs of officials with nuclear responsibilities. Such institutional biases are powerful and long-lived as the NDA (formerly BNFL) is even now resistant to planning dry stores.

Another reason is that no one agency by itself seemed powerful enough to point out the folly of the matter and get the Government to stop reprocessing. When, in the past, environmental groups, Commons’ Committees and Audit agencies etc opposed reprocessing, the Government fobbed them off with platitudes.

For example, in 1993, during a public consultation over airborne radioactive releases from THORP when over 70,000 individuals called for a wider public inquiry, the Government simply ignored them.

So what lessons can we gain from this shameful debacle?

• As a nation, we must properly account for the environmental and other external costs of our policies.
• We must be wary of creating large permanent institutions over which we have little control – or they will come to control us!
• We must learn to listen to people who have different views from the Government – and that includes putting critics on government committees.
• And we must try to use science-led policies rather than fitting up false evidence around pre-conceived policies.

But most of all, we should recognize that nuclear policies, in both weapons and energy, have poorly served the nation.

Dr Ian Fairlie is an independent consultant on environmental radioactivity. He formerly was a senior scientist in the Civil Service and worked for the TUC as a researcher between 1975 and 1990.

In the early hours of 8th February 2014 near Chertsey, Surrey, during the floods in the Thames valley, seven year-old Zane Gbangbola was overcome by gas in his bed and died.

His father was paralysed as a result of his exposure. This week, almost two and a half years after the event, the Surrey Coroner will finally deliver a verdict on the case heard this summer.

Remarkably, Zane’s parents were denied legal aid to be represented at the hearing, after the Legal Aid Agency ruled that it was “not in the public interest”.

Zane’s mother Nicole Lawler told the BBC: “We are trying to find £70,000 just to get a death certificate and hopefully from that some recommendations on landfill. We will fight to get Zane a truthful, dignified answer.”

The events behind this case go to the heart of the UK government’s historic failings to address land contamination, and the hazards it presents to human health and the environment.

Not only does no one in authority wish to admit to the failings of the current system, this case also shows how public authorities will deliberately suppress information to prevent a public outcry over the contaminated land issue.

Next to the Gbangbola’s home is Lavenders Pit. Now a lake, it was once a large area of gravel workings and ‘wet tip’ landfill. As the gravel was extracted, waste was tipped at the lakeside and pushed into the water to fill the void. The tipping started at the north of the site in the late 1950s and went in a clockwise direction, ending near the Gbanbola’s home a the end of the 1960s.

At this time waste tipping wasn’t tightly regulated and record-keep was almost non-existent. Though there was oversight by local authorities and the public health department, it wasn’t strict. When waste licensing under the Control of Pollution Act was introduced in 1977 things improved, but not a lot.

In any case, Lavenders Pit had by then slipped through a loophole out of the waste authority’s regulatory gaze.

Untouched, unmonitored, uninvestigated – like hundreds of other sites

In the early 1970s the construction of the M3 motorway cut the site in half. When waste licensing was introduced the half beyond the motorway was ignored. Ever since it has been left largely untouched, unmonitored and uninvestigated.

In November 2014 I was giving a talk in Guildford on the toxic hazards of fracking. Zane’s parents attended, and afterwards I talked to them. Their story wasn’t a surprise. As I said to them then, I’d been “expecting to meet them for the last twenty years”. That’s because, back in the mid-1990s, it was obvious that such as case was likely to occur.

Their case is a clear example of the failure of the current laws and guidance on contaminated land.

People buying houses near the site were not told of the risks because the local authorities had no information about the risks. In fact, immediately after the events of February 2014, the local authorities denied that it had been a landfill site … because they had no information about it.

It was a Kafkaesque abdication of their duty of care to the public.

The bigger issue here is that this case, though extreme, is not unexpected due to the treatment of contaminated land by successive governments since the 1970s, when the problem first became apparent.

There are sites like Lavenders Pit across Britain. Not just in the gritty industrial heartlands where you might expect, but also the leafy country areas around the conurbations of London, Manchester, Yorkshire, the Midland Valley in Scotland, and across South Wales.

In 1993, under the new Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the government was about to commence a system of contaminated land investigation, clean-up, and public registers of information – so that the public would know the risks.

It never happened.

Michael Howard: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’

Michael Howard, then Secretary of State for Environment, succumbed to pressure from the development industry and scrapped the plans. In the development boom of the early 1990s, the large landowners were worried that the value of their land, and their profits, would be hit if they had to address the legacy of historic land contamination.

Instead Michael Howard introduced a watered-down system where if no one told, and no one ‘officially’ asked, then the risk simply didn’t exist. Without a duty on local authorities to investigate sites and flag-up contaminated land, the onus is on the landowner to disclose the risk – even though it’s not in their interest to do so.

That’s how Lavenders Pit, and many other sites like it across Britain, fell through the current system. Unless they are about to be built on, and planning permission is applied for, the hazards will not be assessed.

Compared to the 1990s, however, we now face an additional challenge – climate change.

The reason Lavenders Pit suddenly became a toxic problem was that the exceptional floods changed the hydrological regime around the site. This is likely to have pushed the toxic gases trapped in the soil into the Gbangbola’s home.

Right now, around low-lying coasts and tidal estuaries there are more than a thousands landfilled areas which could break up, releasing their toxic contents into the environment as flooding and sea-level rise take effect. This risk isn’t even considered under the current regulatory regime.

A recent national survey by the Environment Agency, to which less than two-thirds of local authorities responded, found that 11,000 sites had been investigated since 2000. It also found at least 10,000 sites required investigation as a priority, and that there may be 200,000 contaminated sites nationally which require some form of assessment.

The conspiracy of silence must end!

The reason the contaminated land issue refuses to go away, and why the environment and public health are still at risk, is because successive governments have ducked the issue. The land lobby has significant sway in Whitehall. Far more, it would appear, than the lobby to protect public health.

Traditionally it has been new development, particularly the need to use more brownfield sites, which has driven the contaminated land issue. The risks of climate change, affecting sites not subject to redevelopment, has yet to be considered.

Without serious action to identify contaminated land sites across Britain then, as in the case of Zane Gbangbola, at any time the lives and health of the public might be put at risk. As climate change modifies historic patterns of rainfall, river flooding and coastal inundation, it is likely that further instances of contamination, and possibly death from contaminated sites will take place.

The conspiracy of silence between landowners, developers and local authorities, each trying to limit the financial risks of making sites safe, has to end.

That must begin with a change in national guidance to require – as was the case in 1993 before it was scrapped by Michael Howard – the transparent investigation of all land which is likely to be contaminated, whether it is being developed or not.

Paul Mobbs is an environmental and peace campaigner and long-standing contributor to The Ecologist. He runs the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW) and is the author of Energy Beyond Oil and A Practical Guide to Sustainable ICT (which is available free on-line).

They say in politics you should never say ‘I told you so.’ But I was reminded yesterday of a phrase I’ve often used: “the future of politics doesn’t look like the past.” I don’t say it now, because it is a statement of the obvious.

One of the things I’ve always tried to do, and encourage others to do, is celebrate our victories. We’ve led on 20mph speed limits, on the living wage, on taking air pollution seriously. And we’ve made progress on all of those issues.

And in the news in the past 24 hours, we’ve seen two victories for our causes. One’s small, but important – the government has finally, belatedly, announced a ban on microbeads in cosmetics.

The other’s big, really big – the US and China have jointly ratified the Paris climate deal. That makes Theresa May’s abolition of the department of energy and climate change, and her appointment as Environment Secretary of Andrea Leadsom look very out-of-step, very out-of-date, very dangerous.

If we’re not to be entirely left behind Britain must also ratify the climate treaty now. If China and the US can do it, those two great polluters, we certainly can.

Once again we’re the trailblazers in British politics

As you might expect, I’ve been reflecting back over not just my past four years as leader, but over my 11 years as a member of the Green Party. That’s included 21 conferences and nine major elections.

Elections are like we wish buses were – they just keep coming along. But they’re also like buses in that they don’t always keep to the timetable – something we need to keep in mind in the coming months. Internal elections also just keep coming, and I want to congratulate all of the internal election winners, but particularly Caroline and Jonathan.

When I became leader of the Green Party in 2012 it was historic – the first time a woman had taken over from another woman as a leader of a political party in British history. Now the Green Party has made history again, with the first job-share leadership.

Once again we’re the trailblazers in British politics, proving that the Green Party really does do politics differently – cooperatively, collegiately, working together for the common good. That’s what I’ve experienced through the four years of my leadership – massive support, great help, loving care in the tough times and the good.

I’ve often needed your support. For in the Green Party, although we’re now a major part of the political landscape, we’re still operating with a fraction of the resources of those we’re challenging.

To do my job I’ve had to rely on thousands of unpaid volunteers – volunteers who’ve worked out itineraries, guided me, dealt with the press, written briefings, put me up in their spare rooms. I couldn’t have done it without you – thank you! These have been four wonderful years, both for me, and for the Green Party.

We won more votes than in every previous general election added together!

It is worth reflecting on your achievement in the 2015 general election. You won more votes – 1.1 million – than the Green Party in every previous general election added together. We contested 93% of seats, with 535 candidates, and saved 126 deposits. (In 2010 we saved just six.) That was symbolically and practically important – it saved us £63,000.

In four years as leader I’ve travelled up and down the country. I really should have kept track of my train miles. A journalist asked me this week if I’d ever sat on the floor of a train carriage. Have I ever? I’ve been getting more passionate about bring the railways back into public hands about three times a week.

My recent memorable train journey was going to the wonderful Hen Harrier Day at Edale, with eight hours on trains for three hours on the ground. I’d do it again tomorrow. For a ban on driven grouse shooting wouldn’t just protect our majestic hen harriers, but also the ecology of our uplands, and the flood-threatened communities below them.

The past four years have, however, for British politics, society and our precious natural world, been awful years. The British people last year were stuck with a Tory government backed by only 24% of eligible voters. And the Conservative 2015 manifesto, which assumed we’d remain part of the EU, is now irrelevant. And there’s no democratic guidance on what ‘Brexit’ means.

Theresa May has no democratic legitimacy. She has no right to proceed without a general election. She’s in that position after what the Electoral Reform Society judged a referendum campaign that failed to meet basic democratic standards.

The understandable anger of voters at the state of the nation found an outlet. Brexit is the collateral damage from fire rightly directed at the British political class.

The Green voice in politics has never been more important!

Globally, over the past four years, well: Donald Trump’s a huge worry but Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders are signs of positive change.

Renewable energy has surged ahead in much of the world, the concept of the universal basic income has moved from the fringe very firmly into mainstream debate. But one thing’s clearer by the moment:  Britain needs the Green Party, the world needs its Green parties.

Increasingly voters are recognising that. In Germany the Greens are part of more state governments than Angela Merkel’s CDU. In Australia, the Greens won 10% of first preference votes – but under the Alternative Vote system still only one seat. Remember the hashtag – #AVisnotPR.

Britain and the world need not just Greens offering good ideas, campaigning for them and waiting for others to get the message. Britain, and the world, needs to stop electing the wrong people, then hoping they’ll do the right things. On councils, in national governments, we must elect more, lots more, Greens.

The county council elections next May will be a great chance to do that – I’m confident we can win our first council elections in May in Wales and in many parts of England, and grow our representation on councils where we’ve only recently gained footholds.

And we’ve got a great chance to get the Green message out in upcoming ‘metro mayor’ elections. We don’t agree with the Osborne plan but the elections give us the chance to explain what genuine local power and decisionmaking could look like.

I’m delighted to congratulate our Liverpool candidate, announced yesterday. Tom Crone’s going to be great. And we know that he, and all of our candidates, have the message that people want to, need to, hear.

We are the only truly ‘realistic’ party

For the Green Party message of economic and environmental justice is the message for today. It brings the promise of jobs that people can build a life on, the security of the universal basic income and thriving communities built around small independent businesses and cooperatives.

The environmental crisis extends far beyond climate change: plastics in the oceans, destruction of our soils, biodiversity loss. These crises are a huge threat, but also an opportunity: in making the necessary radical changes to our society to heal our environment we can also build a better, more secure, life for everyone.

What’s clear is that we cannot continue as we are. If someone tells them Green plans are ‘unrealistic’, look them straight in the eye and say: “You’re the unrealistic one. Dream on if you think we can continue as we are.”

The need for Green politics was clear in the referendum debate. Our Greens for a Better Europe campaign provided positive, effective messages, addressing issues from workers’ and human rights to the environment, passionately defending the way in which free movement in Europe enriches all of our lives.

And that’s something that we’ll continue doing, and continue presenting the facts, not the lies that continue to be casually presented, on immigration and other European issues.

The real issue is not immigration

Last week I was at the French Greens Summer University. I was telling Greens from across Europe an important fact about the referendum. Something they need to know and that we need to stress in Britain. People did not vote Leave primarily on the basis of opposition to immigration.

Lord Ashcroft’s detailed study shows that half of Leave voters said the biggest single reason was “the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”. It was only one third who cited their main reason for voting leave “as control over immigration and borders”.

The many politicians, quite a few of them from the Labour Party, who are going around saying “this was a vote about immigration and it shows we have to stop free movement” need to be challenged. Strongly. This was not ‘a vote against immigration’.

And even those voters who say they’re concerned about immigration, when you ask them to explain, most talk about low wages, crowded schools and hospitals, the cost of housing. Those are all rightful concerns. But they are caused by the failed policies of privatisation, of austerity, of financialisation of our economy, of centralisation on Westminster. They are not caused by immigration.

The Brexit hashtag #takebackcontrol sums up the reason why people voted to leave – they were saying they didn’t feel in control of their own lives, their own communities, their own futures.

And that’s no wonder when we’ve got giant, market-dominating companies casually failing to pay their workers the supposedly legally binding minimum wage. They are parasites, tax-dodgers sucking huge profits from our society without paying for the infrastructure essential to generating them.

Time to #takebackREALcontrol

To restore trust, restore democratic control, to stop the plutocrats, what we need is a fair electoral system, a system in which people can vote for what they believe in, and get it. A proportional electoral system: that has to be the key goal, the change on which the essential political, social, economic and environmental transformation can be built.

In the ‘mother of all parliaments’, it’s time to get democracy!

On a global scale, ‘take back control’ could also be the hashtag for another critical issue of the coming year – nuclear weapons. We’ve lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for three generations. And the world’s said enough. One hundred and thirty eight countries have signed up to work for a global ban on these hideous weapons of mass destruction.

In Britain, with Trident renewal on the horizon, we’ve got a unique opportunity to make a huge global impact with our policies, not simply to replace our 1% of the world’s nuclear weapons, the weapons that from one submarine could kill 10 million people.

Let’s join with the majority of the people of the world, take back control and ban nuclear weapons.

No, I will not be joining Ed Balls on Strictly Come Dancing

Lots of people are of course asking what I’ll do next – now I’m no longer Green Party leader.

Well I’m going to let you into a long-hidden secret. In primary school a boy who hated being partnered with me in folk dancing lessons complained I had ‘rusty joints’ – and that became my nickname.

So I promise you, I’m not going to follow Ed Balls on to Strictly Come Dancing. What I will be doing is getting out on the picket lines supporting our junior doctors. Jeremy Hunt says what they’re planning is the worst strike in NHS history. Well he’s got the something right – the adjective. He’s the worst Health Secretary in the history of the NHS.

He really should take English lessons. Jeremy, a contract is an agreement, not something you impose!

What I’ll also be doing in the coming weeks and months is campaigning on education. Students in schools, colleges and universities have told me how they feel failed, damaged, by an education that prepares them for exams, not life, that puts crushing pressure and fear of failure into young lives.

The Green Party education policy – abolishing SATs and the awful phonics test, getting rid of Ofsted, and of course abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants – is wonderful. And it’s up to all of us to ensure that every pupil, every teacher, every parent – everyone who cares about the future – knows what it is.

I’ll also be campaigning for the restoration of cultural education and cultural funding. Drama, music and art are essential parts of a healthy society. And given the importance of these sectors of the British economy, is plainly, simply stupid.

I’ll also be campaigning also to highlight the abject, total failure of the Thatcherite policy of the privatisation of public services. For we know – it’s demonstrated by the failure of the Labour Party to back the NHS Reinstatement Bill championed by Caroline Lucas – that the Green Party is the anti-privatisation party.

We’re the people who say that prisons, courts, policing, military activities should not be in private hands. The coercive power of the state should never be privatised! We’re the people who consistently resisted the privatisation of the Royal Mail, who understand that privatisation is built on cutting the level of services, slashing the pay and condition of services, and shovelling public money into private hands.

I’m standing down as Green Party leader. But I’m not going away

So I think you’ve got the picture. I’m standing down as Green Party leader, but I won’t be going away. If we had a fair, proportional electoral system we’d have 25 MPs in Westminster. Just imagine it, Caroline Lucas 25 times over! But since we don’t, we’ve got to be more creative – find ways to give more people roles and prominence.

My title will be ‘former leader’, but the reality is that I’ll be joining you all in being leaders – for every member of the Green Party is a leader.

You’re helping lead Britain, and the world, away from the destructive, inhumane, unsustainable politics of the past four decade, towards a society, a world, that works within the environmental limits of our one fragile planet while delivering a decent life for everyone.

You’re making a difference in your community – as a councillor, as an organiser, as a talker and a doer – people who together can transform our society.

Thank you for everything you’ve done, and everything you’re going to do. I look forward to what we can achieve, united, together. 

Natalie Bennett is the former leader of the Green Party of England & Wales.

This article is the very slightly edited text of Natalie’s speech to the Green Party conference on 3rd September.

They say in politics you should never say ‘I told you so.’ But I was reminded yesterday of a phrase I’ve often used: “the future of politics doesn’t look like the past.” I don’t say it now, because it is a statement of the obvious.

One of the things I’ve always tried to do, and encourage others to do, is celebrate our victories. We’ve led on 20mph speed limits, on the living wage, on taking air pollution seriously. And we’ve made progress on all of those issues.

And in the news in the past 24 hours, we’ve seen two victories for our causes. One’s small, but important – the government has finally, belatedly, announced a ban on microbeads in cosmetics.

The other’s big, really big – the US and China have jointly ratified the Paris climate deal. That makes Theresa May’s abolition of the department of energy and climate change, and her appointment as Environment Secretary of Andrea Leadsom look very out-of-step, very out-of-date, very dangerous.

If we’re not to be entirely left behind Britain must also ratify the climate treaty now. If China and the US can do it, those two great polluters, we certainly can.

Once again we’re the trailblazers in British politics

As you might expect, I’ve been reflecting back over not just my past four years as leader, but over my 11 years as a member of the Green Party. That’s included 21 conferences and nine major elections.

Elections are like we wish buses were – they just keep coming along. But they’re also like buses in that they don’t always keep to the timetable – something we need to keep in mind in the coming months. Internal elections also just keep coming, and I want to congratulate all of the internal election winners, but particularly Caroline and Jonathan.

When I became leader of the Green Party in 2012 it was historic – the first time a woman had taken over from another woman as a leader of a political party in British history. Now the Green Party has made history again, with the first job-share leadership.

Once again we’re the trailblazers in British politics, proving that the Green Party really does do politics differently – cooperatively, collegiately, working together for the common good. That’s what I’ve experienced through the four years of my leadership – massive support, great help, loving care in the tough times and the good.

I’ve often needed your support. For in the Green Party, although we’re now a major part of the political landscape, we’re still operating with a fraction of the resources of those we’re challenging.

To do my job I’ve had to rely on thousands of unpaid volunteers – volunteers who’ve worked out itineraries, guided me, dealt with the press, written briefings, put me up in their spare rooms. I couldn’t have done it without you – thank you! These have been four wonderful years, both for me, and for the Green Party.

We won more votes than in every previous general election added together!

It is worth reflecting on your achievement in the 2015 general election. You won more votes – 1.1 million – than the Green Party in every previous general election added together. We contested 93% of seats, with 535 candidates, and saved 126 deposits. (In 2010 we saved just six.) That was symbolically and practically important – it saved us £63,000.

In four years as leader I’ve travelled up and down the country. I really should have kept track of my train miles. A journalist asked me this week if I’d ever sat on the floor of a train carriage. Have I ever? I’ve been getting more passionate about bring the railways back into public hands about three times a week.

My recent memorable train journey was going to the wonderful Hen Harrier Day at Edale, with eight hours on trains for three hours on the ground. I’d do it again tomorrow. For a ban on driven grouse shooting wouldn’t just protect our majestic hen harriers, but also the ecology of our uplands, and the flood-threatened communities below them.

The past four years have, however, for British politics, society and our precious natural world, been awful years. The British people last year were stuck with a Tory government backed by only 24% of eligible voters. And the Conservative 2015 manifesto, which assumed we’d remain part of the EU, is now irrelevant. And there’s no democratic guidance on what ‘Brexit’ means.

Theresa May has no democratic legitimacy. She has no right to proceed without a general election. She’s in that position after what the Electoral Reform Society judged a referendum campaign that failed to meet basic democratic standards.

The understandable anger of voters at the state of the nation found an outlet. Brexit is the collateral damage from fire rightly directed at the British political class.

The Green voice in politics has never been more important!

Globally, over the past four years, well: Donald Trump’s a huge worry but Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders are signs of positive change.

Renewable energy has surged ahead in much of the world, the concept of the universal basic income has moved from the fringe very firmly into mainstream debate. But one thing’s clearer by the moment:  Britain needs the Green Party, the world needs its Green parties.

Increasingly voters are recognising that. In Germany the Greens are part of more state governments than Angela Merkel’s CDU. In Australia, the Greens won 10% of first preference votes – but under the Alternative Vote system still only one seat. Remember the hashtag – #AVisnotPR.

Britain and the world need not just Greens offering good ideas, campaigning for them and waiting for others to get the message. Britain, and the world, needs to stop electing the wrong people, then hoping they’ll do the right things. On councils, in national governments, we must elect more, lots more, Greens.

The county council elections next May will be a great chance to do that – I’m confident we can win our first council elections in May in Wales and in many parts of England, and grow our representation on councils where we’ve only recently gained footholds.

And we’ve got a great chance to get the Green message out in upcoming ‘metro mayor’ elections. We don’t agree with the Osborne plan but the elections give us the chance to explain what genuine local power and decisionmaking could look like.

I’m delighted to congratulate our Liverpool candidate, announced yesterday. Tom Crone’s going to be great. And we know that he, and all of our candidates, have the message that people want to, need to, hear.

We are the only truly ‘realistic’ party

For the Green Party message of economic and environmental justice is the message for today. It brings the promise of jobs that people can build a life on, the security of the universal basic income and thriving communities built around small independent businesses and cooperatives.

The environmental crisis extends far beyond climate change: plastics in the oceans, destruction of our soils, biodiversity loss. These crises are a huge threat, but also an opportunity: in making the necessary radical changes to our society to heal our environment we can also build a better, more secure, life for everyone.

What’s clear is that we cannot continue as we are. If someone tells them Green plans are ‘unrealistic’, look them straight in the eye and say: “You’re the unrealistic one. Dream on if you think we can continue as we are.”

The need for Green politics was clear in the referendum debate. Our Greens for a Better Europe campaign provided positive, effective messages, addressing issues from workers’ and human rights to the environment, passionately defending the way in which free movement in Europe enriches all of our lives.

And that’s something that we’ll continue doing, and continue presenting the facts, not the lies that continue to be casually presented, on immigration and other European issues.

The real issue is not immigration

Last week I was at the French Greens Summer University. I was telling Greens from across Europe an important fact about the referendum. Something they need to know and that we need to stress in Britain. People did not vote Leave primarily on the basis of opposition to immigration.

Lord Ashcroft’s detailed study shows that half of Leave voters said the biggest single reason was “the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”. It was only one third who cited their main reason for voting leave “as control over immigration and borders”.

The many politicians, quite a few of them from the Labour Party, who are going around saying “this was a vote about immigration and it shows we have to stop free movement” need to be challenged. Strongly. This was not ‘a vote against immigration’.

And even those voters who say they’re concerned about immigration, when you ask them to explain, most talk about low wages, crowded schools and hospitals, the cost of housing. Those are all rightful concerns. But they are caused by the failed policies of privatisation, of austerity, of financialisation of our economy, of centralisation on Westminster. They are not caused by immigration.

The Brexit hashtag #takebackcontrol sums up the reason why people voted to leave – they were saying they didn’t feel in control of their own lives, their own communities, their own futures.

And that’s no wonder when we’ve got giant, market-dominating companies casually failing to pay their workers the supposedly legally binding minimum wage. They are parasites, tax-dodgers sucking huge profits from our society without paying for the infrastructure essential to generating them.

Time to #takebackREALcontrol

To restore trust, restore democratic control, to stop the plutocrats, what we need is a fair electoral system, a system in which people can vote for what they believe in, and get it. A proportional electoral system: that has to be the key goal, the change on which the essential political, social, economic and environmental transformation can be built.

In the ‘mother of all parliaments’, it’s time to get democracy!

On a global scale, ‘take back control’ could also be the hashtag for another critical issue of the coming year – nuclear weapons. We’ve lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for three generations. And the world’s said enough. One hundred and thirty eight countries have signed up to work for a global ban on these hideous weapons of mass destruction.

In Britain, with Trident renewal on the horizon, we’ve got a unique opportunity to make a huge global impact with our policies, not simply to replace our 1% of the world’s nuclear weapons, the weapons that from one submarine could kill 10 million people.

Let’s join with the majority of the people of the world, take back control and ban nuclear weapons.

No, I will not be joining Ed Balls on Strictly Come Dancing

Lots of people are of course asking what I’ll do next – now I’m no longer Green Party leader.

Well I’m going to let you into a long-hidden secret. In primary school a boy who hated being partnered with me in folk dancing lessons complained I had ‘rusty joints’ – and that became my nickname.

So I promise you, I’m not going to follow Ed Balls on to Strictly Come Dancing. What I will be doing is getting out on the picket lines supporting our junior doctors. Jeremy Hunt says what they’re planning is the worst strike in NHS history. Well he’s got the something right – the adjective. He’s the worst Health Secretary in the history of the NHS.

He really should take English lessons. Jeremy, a contract is an agreement, not something you impose!

What I’ll also be doing in the coming weeks and months is campaigning on education. Students in schools, colleges and universities have told me how they feel failed, damaged, by an education that prepares them for exams, not life, that puts crushing pressure and fear of failure into young lives.

The Green Party education policy – abolishing SATs and the awful phonics test, getting rid of Ofsted, and of course abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants – is wonderful. And it’s up to all of us to ensure that every pupil, every teacher, every parent – everyone who cares about the future – knows what it is.

I’ll also be campaigning for the restoration of cultural education and cultural funding. Drama, music and art are essential parts of a healthy society. And given the importance of these sectors of the British economy, is plainly, simply stupid.

I’ll also be campaigning also to highlight the abject, total failure of the Thatcherite policy of the privatisation of public services. For we know – it’s demonstrated by the failure of the Labour Party to back the NHS Reinstatement Bill championed by Caroline Lucas – that the Green Party is the anti-privatisation party.

We’re the people who say that prisons, courts, policing, military activities should not be in private hands. The coercive power of the state should never be privatised! We’re the people who consistently resisted the privatisation of the Royal Mail, who understand that privatisation is built on cutting the level of services, slashing the pay and condition of services, and shovelling public money into private hands.

I’m standing down as Green Party leader. But I’m not going away

So I think you’ve got the picture. I’m standing down as Green Party leader, but I won’t be going away. If we had a fair, proportional electoral system we’d have 25 MPs in Westminster. Just imagine it, Caroline Lucas 25 times over! But since we don’t, we’ve got to be more creative – find ways to give more people roles and prominence.

My title will be ‘former leader’, but the reality is that I’ll be joining you all in being leaders – for every member of the Green Party is a leader.

You’re helping lead Britain, and the world, away from the destructive, inhumane, unsustainable politics of the past four decade, towards a society, a world, that works within the environmental limits of our one fragile planet while delivering a decent life for everyone.

You’re making a difference in your community – as a councillor, as an organiser, as a talker and a doer – people who together can transform our society.

Thank you for everything you’ve done, and everything you’re going to do. I look forward to what we can achieve, united, together. 

Natalie Bennett is the former leader of the Green Party of England & Wales.

This article is the very slightly edited text of Natalie’s speech to the Green Party conference on 3rd September.