Erin McDaid of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust talks about — its now time for the ‘Nature’ section of the Government’s Planning & Infrastructure Bill to be scraped

Prior to being elected last year, Labour promised to restore nature but less than a year on from the General Election, they seem determined to push ahead with changes to vital planning rules that would create a license to destroy.

In recent months I’ve been critical of Government figures for their anti-nature rhetoric, and I must try and avoid slipping into a rhetoric filled rant – but there’s no escaping that the serious weakening of nature protections set out in the misleadingly named ‘Nature’ section of the Bill represent a broken promise.

Having spent months offering positive and pragmatic suggestions as to how the Bill could be amended to ensure it could deliver on its key objective of speeding up development while ensuring key wildlife protections were retained, its become clear the Government simply are not listening – so we’re changing tack.

Instead of working behind the scenes to secure constructive amendments, we’re now calling for Part 3 of the Bill, which details changes to wildlife protections, be scrapped altogether.

This is a significant change of direction and not one we’ve undertake lightly, but we feel we’ve been backed into a corner due to the intransigence of the Government and their focus on pushing through a Bill that lacks vital detail, and which will make it much, much harder to protect precious areas of wildlife habitat and threatened wild species.

Instead of a streamlined system designed to reduce bureaucracy and boost efforts to invest in nature’s recovery, the Bill, as currently framed, looks set to provide developers with a license to build without due regard to the impacts on nature and our environment and a lack of robust checks and balances to ensure our most precious places and species have the protection they need and deserve.

As justification for sweeping changes, framed as a ‘win-win’ for development and nature, voices within Government continue to claim that efforts to protect species such as newts and bats are holding up developments and blocking growth. In reality these species feature only 3% of planning appeals.

A much more obvious blocker on growth is the Housebuilding sectors reluctance to bring forward all the sites for which they already have planning permissions secured (somewhere over 1 million!) at pace. While the Government strives to deliver growth – seemingly at all costs – I’d postulate that developers desire to maximise profits is much more of an issue and not one which will be resolved by making it easier to destroy nature in the name of growth.

Whether by design or happy coincidence the Government’s drive to push up housing targets, a legitimate aim if done sensitively and with buy in from local communities, comes at the same time as wholesale changes to the structure of Local Government. While Local Planning Authorities would usually have a lot to say about changes to planning rules that water down local democracy and make it harder to ensure that communities have access to nature and greenspace as well as homes – the fact that local councils are currently arguing about which should even exist and what areas to cover, makes it unlikely that they’ll be best placed to fight their own corner.

As we change tack in an effort to get the Government to see sense and keep their promise to restore nature – we need everyone who cares about nature to add their voice. To have your say visit wildlifetrusts.org

Still time to sign up for a Wild June

What better way to usher in the summer than taking part in The Wildlife Trusts’ annual nature challenge – 30 Days Wild. By making time to do one thing connected with nature each day through June, you’ll have fun and connect with nature like never before. Join thousands of people across the UK by signing up and we’ll be here to support you with ideas and suggestions throughout the month.

Whether simply taking a closer look at the wildlife that’s all around you or taking action to help nature on your patch; there are so many options that you’ll almost be spoilt for choice – and we know people feel better for taking part – so what’s not to like?

For further details visit nottinghamshirewildlife.org/30-days-wild

To get your wild June off to a great start, our South Notts Local group has organised walks along West Bridgford’s Greenline and around Wilwell Farm Cutting Nature Reserve between Wilford & Ruddington.