OEP Report & Himalayan Balsam

National news

Progress | The Office for Environmental Protection has published its fourth progress report on the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), covering progress on delivery in the 12 months up to March 2025. The report is the first to assess Labour’s progress, but like the previous three under Conservative leadership, it found that the government is ‘largely off track’ on most environmental measures. Seven of the ten legally binding targets set under the Environment Act are unlikely to be met by 2030. On biodiversity, it found that ‘the opportunity to effect further change’ ahead of the 2030 deadline to halt the decline of wildlife ‘has now largely passed’. On a positive note, the government’s revised EIP, issued in December, came too late to be included in the report, though OEP chair Dame Glenys Stacey did note that it offered a ‘more coherent plan’. The Guardian and ENDS reported the news.