Nottingham-based ecology, land management and arboriculture consultancy EMEC has been appointed on a nationwide project to survey UK peatlands as part of The England Peat Map Project (EPM). EMEC has been sub-contracted by FERA Science Ltd to deliver the majority of field surveys, which will comprise over 2400 vegetation and 900 soil field surveys across England. EMEC will also lead a network of other wildlife trust consultancies who will be co-operating together in order to meet the national scope of the project. The England Peat Map project is part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment Programme (NCEA), a science innovation and transformation programme funded by Defra which spans across land and water environments. The EPM project commenced in April 2021 and will run until 2024 with the intention of providing new evidence to support a range of uses including restoring peatlands and reporting on peatland carbon emissions. Experts believe that mapping England’s peat will contribute towards the Government achieving its net zero target by 2050. Funding for the £3m project has come from the Nature for Climate fund. Ed Tripp, consultancy director at EMEC, said: “Healthy peatland has a cooling effect on the climate as peat captures carbon from the atmosphere and stores it underground. Knowing where the peat is, and its condition will help conservationists identify areas for future restoration and protection. Working with a wide range of partners and stakeholders to restore peatland will be a considerable step towards reaching 2050 targets.” He added: “The project should also help to set a framework for gathering and recording data. Current information is patchy and not recorded in a standard format which makes it difficult to understand peat volume and its capacity to store carbon. The project will deliver new baseline mapping that is cost effective and exploit the opportunities offered by advances in technology and data.” The comprehensive mapping of England’s peat resources will underpin a range of activities that will help to improve how we estimate greenhouses gases, where to target restoration activities and understand their effectiveness, as well as apply and share learning and data with other partners.

James Pinchbeck, partner at Streets Chartered Accountants, reflects on the Spring Budget. Listening to the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget you might have been left with the sense that it set out to address everything for everyone, everywhere here and now. Delivered with the news that inflation seems to be on target to being more than halved by the end of the year and that the UK has technically avoided a recession, the Chancellor did appear ebullient in terms of future prospects for the UK economy and growth. Early on in his speech it was good to hear about the proposed £100m support for local charities, recognition of the vital work and role our third sector plays in supporting our communities. So too was the news around the provision of £63m to be made available for public swimming pools and leisure centres, all of which play a key part for many in ensuring physical and mental health and wellbeing. When it came to the cost-of-living crisis all will no doubt have been pleased to hear that the energy price cap for households will remain in place for a further 3 months, with the start of the summer expected to see a reduction in real terms in the cost of energy. Motorists will have welcomed the continuation of the 5p fuel duty freeze and for those that like a pint down the pub, the 11p reduction in alcohol duty on a draught pint has probably gone down a treat. Moving on to what the Budget 2023 means for business and enterprise, Mr Hunt did not, as many might have hoped, seek to cancel the forthcoming increase in Corporation Tax from 19% to 25% this April. In part he indicated that the lower rate actually hadn’t had the impact or desired outcome in terms of stimulating economic growth or rewarding or incentivising enterprise. He did however, seek to harness the upside of Super Deduction, the tax relief which was due to come to an end this April, with the introduction of full capital expensing for the next three years, with the intention of making this permanent. Under this relief, IT, plant and machinery will be deductible in full from taxable profits. Looking to support the life science and creative sectors, an enhanced credit is set to be introduced whereby for every £100 spent on R&D, eligible companies would be able to claim £27 back. Further tax relief and support is also being introduced for SME’s who undertake more intensive R&D, especially in the fields of life science, healthcare and artificial intelligence. When it comes to barriers to economic and business growth one of the key challenges many businesses face is a workforce and labour shortage. Whether keen to help businesses address this issue or to reduce the growing number of people who are classed as economically inactive, the Chancellor announced a number of measures aimed at targeting and supporting, at one end, those with health-related issues and child care challenges and at the other end, encouraging those aged over 50 back to the work place. With regard to the latter, a key area of focus was seeking to address the shortage of health care professionals who might have left the profession as they have reached the pension threshold and felt continuing was not financially attractive or beneficial. Measures to boost the workforce then saw financial support and incentives for those seeking child care provision and more flexibility for nurseries and child minders as providers. Schools are also being encouraged to provide greater wrap around cover for childcare at the start and end of a working day. When it comes to those over 50 who may have left the workplace, the Chancellor chose to increase the annual pension allowance from £40,000 to £60,000 and remove the life time allowance, the maximum a person may have in a pension pot. With this, along with the rising costs of living and a sense that many might now want to do something, he hopes that people will seek work, even if it is not necessarily what they used to do. To support them he is also looking to introduce apprenticeships for the over 50s helping them to re-train and up skill. Whether the measures announced will help to fill vacancies will no doubt depend on the ability to match skills with jobs, especially in those sectors with particular challenges such as healthcare, education, tourism, hospitality and even the professions like accountants and solicitors. Finally, it was interesting to hear about the creation of 12 new investment zones including those planned for the West Midlands, East Midlands, Teesside, South and West Yorkshire along with the proposed £400m for further levelling up partnerships. Such initiatives do appear to be, in part, underpinned in some areas with changes to public accountability and responsibility with a move to decisions, influence and control transferring from Local Enterprise Partnership to unity authorities. At just over an hour long the Chancellor’s Budget could not be classed as an epic. It did though seem to be action packed and full of content, as to the substance that is likely to come to the fore when we see the devil in the detail. The next 12 months as we run up to an election will see if it has the desired impact he and the government want and the electorate might crave. See this column in the April edition of East Midlands Business Link Magazine here.

After suffering three years of knocks East Midlands businesses are finally optimistic about what 2023 could bring, according to new research into the state of the region’s economy. Uncertainty has been replaced with confidence, there has been a turnaround in sales and companies are now expecting to employ more people once again, East Midlands Chamber’s latest study illustrates. Economic indicators covered by the business representation group’s Quarterly Economic Survey, which is delivered in partnership with the University of Leicester School of Business, have been largely negative since the end of 2021, but they are all now heading in the right direction during the first quarter of 2023. East Midlands Chamber director of policy and insight Chris Hobson said: “Following an uncertain end to 2022, these latest findings demonstrate how businesses are beginning 2023 by displaying signs of growth and an increasing confidence for the year ahead. “Sales and advanced orders are steadily growing, cashflow is improving – although there are still significantly more businesses reporting a decline in cashflow (35%) as opposed to an increase (22%) – and price pressures continue their gradual drop-off. “The relative certainty in the policy environment, at least compared to the constant flip-flopping that came before, is now leading to a significant upturn in business confidence and, therefore, investment intentions, which are crucial if we are to steer the economy back on track and achieve consistent growth. “While the region’s unemployment rate has been at historically low levels in recent times, our research had shown a decline in employers recruiting – mainly due to an extremely tight labour market driven by escalating numbers of economically inactive people since the dawn of the pandemic combined with longstanding skills shortages. “So it’s pleasing to see a positive swing, with a 7% increase in the proportion of businesses recruiting in the past three months and a 14% improvement in those expecting to add to their workforce before the summer, as this generates jobs and prosperity locally. “While all this paints a far healthier picture than at the end of 2022, caution is required as many of these indicators are still down from where we were a year ago. “We are moving slowly in the right direction but Government support is still required to ‘get the basics right’ by knocking down the everyday barriers to doing business, and then backing our firms to grow the economy by focusing on the ‘four Is’ – investment, innovation, infrastructure and international trade – all of which is laid out in our Business Manifesto for Growth.”