Exclusive: freedom of information request reveals ministers rejected plan to make pledge legally binding

The UK government has no plans to meet its target for everyone to live within a 15-minute walk of a green space, the Guardian can reveal.

Ministers have also scrapped an idea to make the target for access to nature legally binding, a freedom of information request submitted by the Right to Roam campaign shows.

Launching the plans earlier this year, the then-environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, congratulated herself for the idea: “I am particularly pleased by our pledge in this plan to bring access to a green or blue space within 15 minutes’ walk of everyone’s homes – whether that be through parks, canals, rivers, countryside or coast,” she said.

But in response to a freedom of information request, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “No assessment has yet gone to ministers on options for how to progress towards the commitment.”

  • @NounsAndWords
    13•1 year ago

    Guy Shrubsole, from the Right to Roam campaign, said: “A year after making their access commitment, ministers still have no idea how on earth to meet it. And having rejected setting a legal target for increasing access, the government is clearly only interested in spinning good headlines rather than improving the nation’s health and wellbeing.

    I don’t know why you would need additional information first to come to the conclusion that conservatives don’t give a fuck about (anyone else’s) health and well-being.