The value of badger populations and control of tuberculosis in cattle in England and Wales: A note

This note reports on the results of a choice experiment survey of 400 people in England and Wales, conducted to estimate the value that society places on changes to the size of the badger population. The study was undertaken in the context of the possible need to reduce the badger population by culling to help control bovine tuberculosis in cattle. The study found that people were concerned about the problem of bovine tuberculosis in cattle, which was reflected in their willingness to pay to control the disease, and gave a relatively low value to changes in the size of the badger population (within limits). However, people did not like the idea of a policy that intentionally killed large numbers of badgers and had a relatively very high willingness to pay not to have such a policy.

Tropospheric ozone and winter wheat production in England and Wales: A note

Tropospheric ozone is an air pollutant thought to reduce crop yields across Europe. Much experimental scientific work has been completed or is currently underway to quantify yield effects at ambient ozone levels. In this research, we seek to directly evaluate whether such effects are observed at the farm level. This is done by intersecting a farm level panel dataset for winter wheat farms in England & Wales with information on ambient ozone, and estimating a production function with ozone as a fixed input. Panel data methods, Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) techniques and nested exogeneity tests are employed in the estimation. The results confirm a small, but nevertheless statistically significant negative effect of ambient ozone levels on wheat yields.

Winter wheat in England and Wales, 1923 - 1995: What do indices of genetic diversity reveal?

Genealogical data have been used very widely to construct indices with which to examine the contribution of plant breeding programmes to the maintenance and enhancement of genetic resources. In this paper we use such indices to examine changes in the genetic diversity of the winter wheat crop in England and Wales between 1923 and 1995. We find that, except for one period characterized by the dominance of imported varieties, the genetic diversity of the winter wheat crop has been remarkably stable. This agrees with many studies of plant breeding programmes elsewhere. However, underlying the stability of the winter wheat crop is accelerating varietal turnover without any significant diversification of the genetic resources used. Moreover, the changes we observe are more directly attributable to changes in the varietal shares of the area under winter wheat than to the genealogical relationship between the varieties sown. We argue, therefore, that while genealogical indices reflect how well plant breeders have retained and exploited the resources with which they started, these indices suffer from a critical limitation. They do not reflect the proportion of the available range of genetic resources which has been effectively utilized in the breeding programme: complex crosses of a given set of varieties can yield high indices, and yet disguise the loss (or non-utilization) of a large proportion of the available genetic diversity.

Spatio-temporal analysis of an invasive plant pathogen (Phytophthora ramorum) in England and Wales

Phytophthora ramorum is a damaging invasive plant pathogen and was first discovered in the UK in 2002. Spatial point analyses were applied to the occurrence of this disease in England and Wales during the period of 2003-2006 in order to assess its spatio-temporal spread. Out of the 4301 garden centres and nurseries (GCN) surveyed, there were 164, 105, 123 and 41 sites with P. ramorum in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, respectively. Spatial analysis of the observed point patterns of GCN outbreaks suggested that these sites were significantly clumped within a radius of ca 60 km in 2003, but not in later years. Further analyses were conducted to determine the relationship of GCN outbreak sites over two consecutive years and thus to infer possible disease spread over time. This analysis suggested that disease spread among GCN sites was most likely to have occurred within a distance of 60 km for 2003-2004, but not for the later years. There were 35, 63, 81 and 58 sites with P. ramorum in the semi-natural environment (SNE). Analyses were carried out to assess whether infected GCN sites could act as an inoculum source of infected SNE plants or vice versa. In all years, there was a significant spatial closeness among GCN and SNE outbreak sites within a distance of 1 km. But a significant relationship over a longer distance (within 60 km) was only observed between cases in 2003 and 2004. These analyses suggest that statutory actions taken so far appear to have reduced the extent of long-distance spread of P. ramorum among garden centres and nurseries, but not the disease spread at a shorter distance between GCN and SNE sites.

Fox-hunting in England and Wales: its contribution to the management of woodland and other habitats

Hunting foxes with hounds has been a countryside pursuit in Britain since the 17th Century, but its effect nationally on habitat management is little understood by the general public. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 163 mounted fox hunts of England and Wales to quantify their management practices in woodland and other habitat. Ninety-two hunts (56%), covering 75,514 km(2), returned details on woodland management motivated by the improvement of their sport. The management details were verified via on-site visits for a sample of 200 woodlands. Following verification, the area of woodlands containing the management was conservatively estimated at 24,053 (+/- 2241) ha, comprising 5.9% of woodland area within the whole of the area hunted by the 92 hunts. Management techniques included: tree planting, coppicing, felling, ride and perimeter management. A case study in five hunt countries in southern England examined, through the use of botanical survey and butterfly counts, the consequences of the hunt management on woodland ground flora and butterflies. Managed areas had, within the last 5 years, been coppiced and rides had been cleared. Vegetation cover in managed and unmanaged sites averaged 86% and 64%, respectively, and managed areas held on average 4 more plant species and a higher plant diversity than unmanaged areas (Shannon index of diversity: 2.25 vs. 1.95). Both the average number of butterfly species (2.2 vs. 0.3) and individuals counted (4.6 vs. 0.3) were higher in the managed than unmanaged sites.

Modelling the likely impact of healthy eating guidelines on agricultural production and land use in England and Wales

Quadratic programming techniques were applied to household food consumption data in England and Wales to estimate likely changes in diet under healthy eating guidelines, and the consequences this would have on agriculture and land use in England and Wales. The first step entailed imposing nutrient restrictions on food consumption following dietary recommendations suggested by the UK Department of Health. The resulting diet was used, in a second step as a proxy for demand in agricultural commodities, to test the impact of such a scenario on food production and land use in England and Wales and the impacts of this on agricultural landscapes. Results of the diet optimisation indicated a large drop in consumption of foods rich in saturated fats and sugar, essentially cheese and sugar-based products, along with lesser cuts of fat and meat products. Conversely, consumption of fruit and vegetables, cereals, and flour would increase to meet dietary fibre recommendations. Such a shift in demand would dramatically affect production patterns: the financial net margin of England and Wales agriculture would rise, due to increased production of high market value and high economic margin crops. Some regions would, however, be negatively affected, mostly those dependent on beef cattle and sheep production that could not benefit from an increased demand for cereals and horticultural crops. The effects of these changes would also be felt in upstream industries, such as animal feed suppliers. While arable dominated landscapes would be little affected, pastoral landscapes would suffer through loss of grazing management and, possibly, land abandonment, especially in upland areas.

Geographical concentration in the institutional market for office property in England and Wales

This paper examines the regional investment practices of institutional investors in the commercial real estate office market in 1998 and 2003 in England and Wales. Consistent with previous studies in the US the findings show that investors concentrate their holdings in a few (urban) areas and that this concentration has become more pronounced as investors have rationalised their portfolio holdings. The findings also indicate that office investment does not fully correlate with the UK urban hierarchy, as measured by population, but is focused on urban areas with high service sector employment. Finally, the pre-eminence of the City of London and and West End office markets as the key focus of institutional investment is confirmed.

Incorporating climate change into water resources planning in England and Wales

Public water supplies in England and Wales are provided by around 25 private-sector companies, regulated by an economic regulator (Ofwat) and and environmental regulator (Environment Agency). As part of the regulatory process, companies are required periodically to review their investment needs to maintain safe and secure supplies, and this involves an assessment of the future balance between water supply and demand. The water industry and regulators have developed an agreed set of procedures for this assessment. Climate change has been incorporated into these procedures since the late 1990s, although has been included increasingly seriously over time and it has been an effective legal requirement to consider climate change since the 2003 Water Act. In the most recent assessment in 2009, companies were required explicitly to plan for a defined amount of climate change, taking into account climate change uncertainty. A “medium” climate change scenario was defined, together with “wet” and “dry” extremes, based on scenarios developed from a number of climate models. The water industry and its regulators are now gearing up to exploit the new UKCP09 probabilistic climate change projections – but these pose significant practical and conceptual challenges. This paper outlines how the procedures for incorporating climate change information into water resources planning have evolved, and explores the issues currently facing the industry in adapting to climate change.

Spatial concentration in institutional industrial real estate investment in the England and Wales

In two recent papers Byrne and Lee (2006, 2007) examined the geographical concentration of institutional office and retail investment in England and Wales at two points in time; 1998 and 2003. The findings indicate that commercial office portfolios are concentrated in a very few urban areas, whereas retail holdings correlate more closely with the urban hierarchy of England and Wales and consequently are essentially ubiquitous. Research into the industrial sector is very much less developed, and this paper therefore makes a significant contribution to understanding the structure of industrial property investment in the UK. It shows that industrial investment concentration is between that of retail and office and is focussed on LAs with high levels of manual workers in areas with smaller industrial units. It also shows that during the period studied the structure of the sector changed, with greater emphasis on the distributional element, for which location is a principal consideration.

Access to the countryside of England and Wales: popular leisure; commodified culture

Risk and uncertainty are, to say the least, poorly considered by most individuals involved in real estate analysis - in both development and investment appraisal. Surveyors continue to express 'uncertainty' about the value (risk) of using relatively objective methods of analysis to account for these factors. These methods attempt to identify the risk elements more explicitly. Conventionally this is done by deriving probability distributions for the uncontrolled variables in the system. A suggested 'new' way of "being able to express our uncertainty or slight vagueness about some of the qualitative judgements and not From its modern origins, associated with the urbanising effect of industrialisation, walking has remained a popular form of outdoor recreation. It has, furthermore, remained an important site of class struggle, with the 'landless' seeking to establish their moral 'citizen' right to roam over open country in contradistinction to the 'landed', who have successfully limited this right to legally-defined public rights of way. In the face of declining farm incomes, however, farmers and landowners have, apparently, modified their attitudes towards public access, but only in return for compensation and management payments under grant schemes such as Countryside Stewardship and the Countryside Premium Scheme. With the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food now seeking to extend paid access arrangements to other grant schemes, as part of its response to the European Union's Agri-Environment Regulations, access 'rights' are assuming an increasingly commodified form, thereby questioning, if not undermining, the former citizen claims. For rather than being a benefit of citizenship, the existence of limited, often poorly maintained and inadequately signposted, public rights of way has tied inextricably the extension of legally-enforceable access to the needs of the landowners and farmers. At a time of falling prosperity in agriculture, therefore, they have now exercised their discretion by annexing the populism of consumer culture to reproduce the bourgeois liberal values of the market as a principal determinant of the extension of citizen rights of access to the countryside.

Access to the countryside of England and Wales: public/private partnership or the privatisation of public rights?

This paper examines the evolution of public rights of access to private land in England and Wales. Since the Eighteenth Century the administration and protection of these rights has been though a form of public/private partnership in which the judiciary, while maintaining the dominance of private property, have safeguarded de facto public access by refusing consistently to punish simple trespass. While this situation has been modified, principally by post-World War II legislation, to allow for some formalisation of access arrangements and consequent compensation to landowners in areas of high recreational pressure and low legal accessibility, recent policy initiatives suggest that the balance of the partnership has now shifted in favour of landowners. In particular, the new access payment schemes, developed by the UK Government in response to the European Commission's Agri-Environment Regulations, locate the landowner as the beneficiary of the partnership, financed by tax revenue and justified on the spurious basis of improved 'access provision'. As such the state, as the former upholder of citizen rights, now assumes the duplicitous position of underwriting private property ownership through the commodification of access, while proclaiming a significant improvement in citizens' access rights.