A LANDSCAPE agency that will open up more areas of countryside and coastline to walkers is to be established.

The body, known as Natural England, would also keep check on farmers and ensure that they look after the countryside. They must safeguard wildlife habitats, use fewer pesticides and look after footpaths and ancient monuments.

Farmers failing to adopt greener practices would be likely to lose payments under the Common Agriculture Policy.

This conservation body is also expected to review the Government’s biodiversity targets and do more to halt the decline in farmland birds and to improve the conditions at sites of special scientific interest.

The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill will create the new agency and provide a strong rural voice in Whitehall. The Commmission for Rural Communities will continue to keep check on the Government’s commitment to the countryside and highlight the plight of the rural needy.

One of its priorities will be to look for new ways to provide cheap, rented accommodation in some of the most picturesque and expensive areas for young people and families.

The Bill puts in place recommendations by Lord Haskins, a government rural adviser, to streamline the delivery of public services in rural England. He found too much duplication in various government bodies and advised the dismantling of the Countryside Agency.

This will be achieved by boosting English Nature, the lead advisers on the countryside, to take on landscape management, national parks, countryside access and recreation to form Natural England by January 2007.

A new Common Land Bill should also help to improve the look of the countryside and give wildlife habitats greater protection. Ministers and conservation experts were concerned that management of common land was too piecemeal and that commoners failed to work with other landowners for the common good.

The new laws also aim to prevent overgrazing and unauthorised development on common land and also to add commons to the places where walkers now have “a right to roam”.

Other new laws promised are an Animal Welfare Bill and a draft Marine Bill. The former will consolidate 20 pieces of legislation. Animal welfare groups such as the RSPCA favour a new statutory duty on owners for the care of their pets, but there is concern from many dog owners about the plan to ban tail docking.

Shooting estates are also anxious about new curbs that may affect the rearing of pheasant and partridge. It is understood the Government has dropped plans to outlaw the giving away of goldfish as prizes at fairgrounds or village fêtes.

A draft Marine Bill is also promised which, for the first time, would regulate activities at sea. The aim is to introduce a form of planning permission for coastal and marine activities such as fishing, aggregate dredging, offshore wind farms, jet skiing and motor boats.

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Ban on tail docking

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