UK government may Axe Some Green Services in its Savings Plan

According to new reports, the UK government environment departments say that £250 million of cuts will have to come from conservation and green building schemes. Thus, this week green organizations were assessing just how hard they would be hit by this big cut imposed by the coalition government.

Right now reports suggest that the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will lose about £162 million, or the same as 5.5 percent of its budget. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is set to lose about £85 million, or the same as 2.5 percent of its budget. Both of these departments said that they would not be able to deliver the savings solely by limiting recruitment and making in house spending. They would be forced to cut capital programs.

The UK’s 200,000 farmers and landowners, who usually receive tens of billion of pounds of European subsidies for owning land and growing food, will be able to escape most of the cuts. This good news for farmers comes in light of the fact that European common agricultural policy payments are made directly from Brussels.

Despite this, conservation and green building efforts could be severely hit by a significant withdrawal of funding for regional development agencies, which subsidize many agricultural, environmental and renewable energy schemes. A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that it could take weeks to finalize details on the plan. Nothing has been set in stone yet. She did add that the cuts would include flood defense funding, surveillance of some diseases, and IT programs for farmers.