Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
At this time of swans, geese, calling birds, French hens, turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree, it is apt that the natural world is on the political radar.
The recent announcements about the Government’s plans to bulldoze its way to building 1.5million new homes over the next five years have raised many questions. Among them, is how the circle of this huge target can be squared with the mass of green tape which has wrapped itself around the planning process like Japanese knotweed.
Last weekend, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and DEFRA Secretary Steve Reed assured Sunday Times readers that new infrastructure and homes can co-exist with wildlife and waterways’ protection. The forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill will “unlock a win-win for the economy and for nature.”
Bats and newts were singled out as nature’s bed blockers to Get-Britain-Building, along with nutrient neutrality rules – which aim to limit the amount of polluting minerals, including phosphorous and nitrates, entering rivers and streams.
Last month we learned that a proposed 1km-long “shed” in Buckingham to protect bats from the impact of HS2 will cost more than £100 million. The Sheephouse Wood Bat Structure is one of almost 8,300 consents needed to build phase one of the new railway, whose projected costs have far exceeded the original £37.5 billion.
Implicated in HS2’s batsh*t-crazy spiral of delays and costs is Natural England, the government’s statutory advisor for the natural environment. Its blog however made clear that it “has not required HS2 to build the reported [bat] structure, or any other structure nor advised on the designs and costs”. But, as it stated: “HS2 has an obligation throughout the whole route to abide by legislation that exists to protect nature.”
This legislation includes the Protection of Badgers Act (1992), the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations (2017), the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) and the 2021 Environment Act. The Sunak government’s 262-page Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 updated work done by the May administration. Earlier this year, a statutory instrument extended Biodiversity Gain requirements to smaller developments of 9 or more dwellings or on sites larger than 0.5 hectares.
All this has led to what Rayner and Reeve have identified as a “cottage industry of consultants”. Anyone getting sight of a 23-page box-ticking report on biodiversity net gain which tries to justify its £3,000+ price tag by treating a suburban garden as if it were the Amazon rainforest hit by mass ecocide can only agree. Who knew the possibility of a white-clawed crayfish in a drainage ditch is central to Surrey’s ecosphere?
Like the 8,000+ consents needed for HS2, the government’s new Planning bill seems to take its inspiration from the Medieval church’s indulgences. The bigger the sin, the more that needs to be paid, not only by developers but also by the taxpayer.
Go ahead, destroy the ancient woodland of the Chilterns for HS2 – that out-of-control political vanity project – but all is forgiven if there is a shelter which the Bechstein’s bat might, or might not, use. Similarly, the proposed changes to the planning system, such as more decisions to be taken by planning officers and fewer by local councillors, include a Nature Restoration Fund, to which developers will contribute.
The Fund will “offset the environmental impact of development” says the Budget report. Exactly where this will lead is tricky to predict: bat boxes in Westmoreland balancing a new solar farm in Wiltshire? More meadows for butterflies to counter an invasion of pylons?
In many instances, development foisted on local people will be resented. Undemocratic, it will embody the over-reach of an overmighty state, motivated either by ideology (Net Zero) or failure (immigration policy resulting in a housing shortage).
Last year’s State of Nature report suggested that the UK “is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth”, with 16 per cent of the 10,000 species of mammals, plants, insects, birds and amphibians under threat of extinction, including turtle doves.
Images from Scotland showing a dead golden eagle, killed by the blades of a wind turbine, will surely have made even the most committed Net Zero zealots reflect. It highlights the insoluble struggle between nature and human needs, especially on a small, densely populated island like Britain.
Having introduced far-reaching legislation to protect the natural world, recent Conservative administrations forgot that there is more to the environment than Net Zero. Attempts to get any credit for greenery were sunk by the lax oversight of the water companies, Ofwat and the Environment Agency, which together presided over the pollution of England and Wales’s waterways.
At the last election, the Lib Dems nimbly exploited the Conservatives’ hands-off approach to the fouling of our chalk streams, rivers and bathing water. They somehow burnished their green credentials while calling for 1.9 million homes to be built.
While it is easy to make light of concerns over newts, Conservatives should separate the wood of environmental protection from the trees of the green grift.
The British love their countryside and its wildlife. Millions are members of the National Trust, the RSPB and the grassroots Wildlife Trusts. A nation of tree huggers emerged after the Sycamore Gap tree was felled. Last week YouGov found that almost two-thirds of us have a favourable opinion of environmentalism. Not all those who are concerned about development should be dismissed as selfish NIMBYs.
An audit of green tape is in order. But as the Government seems determined to consign thickets of environmental protection to landfill, in the context of Britain’s beautiful natural landscape and biodiversity, Conservatives can do what it says on the tin – conserve.