More than a century of unsustainable farming practices and urban development have taken their toll on nature and resulted in alarming rates of ecological decline. The UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world – in the bottom 10% globally, and last among the G7 nations, with almost half of our biodiversity wiped out, and one in six species threatened with extinction. Although we are in an ecological and climate emergency, a radical overhaul of the planning system is underway, which prioritises economic growth over our environment, and will see the largest post-war house-building programme the country has seen.
Thanks to the planning system, developers are unaccountable due to lack of resources
The Tories introduced mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) as a planning requirement, advocating it as a way to help improve natural habitats, and create new ones. BNG, they said, would ensure an increase in the biodiversity of a site by at least 10%, compared to its pre-development state.
But a year after its introduction, studies show this policy is not delivering its intended benefits, with an absence of government resources dedicated towards enforcement meaning developers are not held accountable for their negative impacts on nature.
Malcolm Tait, Professor of planning at Sheffield University, is co-author of a report published by Wild Justice, called Lost Nature: Are Housing Developers Delivering Their Ecological Commitments? His study involved surveying more than 40 new housing estates across five Local Planning Authorities in England. Tait explained:
We went out and counted what developers promised against what they delivered. We found only about half of what had been promised was actually there on the ground. Part of the problem is that developers just aren’t installing it in the first place. The other side is about how these places are managed. Often there is a document, that the planning permission says should be followed, about how to manage, for example, a public open space- how you mow it, protect it for wildlife, and so on. But these aren’t always being done, the mechanisms we have to deliver these features for nature on housing estates just aren’t being put into place.
Biodiversity Net Gain used to justify increased levels of development
The study found more than 80% of Hedgehog highways,100% of bug boxes, and 75% of both bat and bird boxes were missing from new developments, half the native hedges which were supposed to be laid did not exist, and almost 40% of trees detailed on planting plans were missing or dead.
Evidence was also found of areas planted as wild flower meadows being regularly mowed. These findings have led Wild Justice to believe BNG is being used to justify increased levels of development, on the grounds that ecological harms can be mitigated while, in reality, nature seriously loses out. According to Tait, part of the problem is due to housing developers often passing over management of these areas to private companies, who are not set up to do this work.
Tait said that:
So the private companies often subcontract to landscaping companies, on a very basic level, and they run off with quite a lot of profit from it. There’s always a willingness to save money on housing developments and, because they are aware that Local Authorities have very little, if any, resources to enforce breaches of planning permission when it comes to the ecology side of things, developers know they can get away with things, and the estate management companies know they are unlikely to get called out if they don’t maintain an area properly. If this is a key part of out plan to minimize our impact on biodiversity, and try and stem species loss, it’s like a death by 1000 cuts. Every small thing that is not enforced soon adds up and before you know it what’s meant to be a net gain for nature policy is actually a net loss.
New research has also found more than three-quarters of non-householder planning applications have somehow managed to claim exemptions from BNG requirements since the policy came into effect.
Initially claiming nature recovery would be supported alongside growth, Labour is now backtracking on these commitments, announcing it is on the side of the builders, not the blockers. Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised:
common sense changes to environmental rules will support the government’s commitment to build 1.5 million homes and advance 150 major infrastructure project decisions
She said this was to allow developers to:
focus on getting things built and stop worrying over the bats and the newts
Impacts of some developments too great to justify
Jim Foster, Conservation director at Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC) said that:
It’s very interesting senior government have singled out newts, alongside bats. This is very unfortunate, and seems to be a divisive tactic. Nature and economic growth don’t need to be in opposition. It’s quite feasible to run a planning system that tries to balance all the differing needs of a society- protecting sites where they need protecting from developmental impacts, and allowing development to go ahead where appropriate. Although we are clear there will be some cases where a proposed development will be just, from a nature point of view, off the cards because the impacts will be too great.
Although the government has committed to a brownfield-first approach to house-building – as these previously developed sites which are no longer being used, are often located in urban areas with good infrastructure and connections – many also contain ecologically important habitats rich in biodiversity.
Foster said:
Brownfield sites tend to be quite open, and not covered in lots of trees. This is great for amphibians and reptiles, as they like the heat. Also, the kinds of vegetation that grow up on brownfield sites- long grass, low scrub habitat- generates good food and creates the right thermal conditions for them. Things like piles of bricks and broken hard standing are also commonly found in these sites, and provide shelter and hiding places for these invertebrates.
To best way to protect nature would be for appropriate assessments of the current wildlife value of each and every potential plot of land to occur before any development gets the go ahead, whether in urban areas or the countryside, as once planning permission has been granted it is very difficult to make changes to a development. But often, surveys do not take place at all, or only occur after a development has begun, once various species have been spotted.
Foster explained that:
What we need is for the system to pick up the presence of these species much earlier in the process. Ideally, even before a developer has purchased the land, they should look at the many pros and cons of each site they are interested in, among these should be the impact on wildlife, before they take the investment decision to buy a site and do all the preparations.
Homes England plans to build 260 houses on ‘irreplaceable’ Site of Nature Conservation Interest
Campaigners believe Brislington Meadows is a special place, where development should be prevented at all costs. This undisturbed site is irreplaceable because of its huge diversity of species and habitats, but it is one of several greenfield sites in Bristol earmarked for development. In 2014, despite being designated a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), it was allocated for housing in the Council’s Local Plan, and in 2020 was acquired for £15m by Homes England – the government’s house-building agency. Even though the council U-turned on their decision, Homes England was granted outline planning permission in 2023, for 260 houses, and parking, on the site.
Developing the meadows will destroy important habitat, including three quarters of the hedgerows- which date back to at least 1840, and a quarter of the ancient tree and woodland area. Around 80 grassland species, and also many butterfly, bird, mammal and invertebrate species will be affected by the development. Danica Priest is one of the many people in Bristol fighting these housing plans.
She said that:
There’s virtually no one, including the council, supporting the development. Our local council is 100 percent behind us. The ecology surveys were carried out after the land was sold, and the council then realised the importance of the meadows for nature. They are still trying to protect the site, by taking it out of the future Local Plan, but Central government doesn’t care about this, and is fighting the Local Council’s plans. The environmental protections in this country are really lax. We don’t have anything like an Endangered Species Act, where struggling species are protected, and developers can pretty much build on any site if they can prove they have mitigated or offset something. Everything’s skewed in favour of development.
Green spaces are vital for people too
Green spaces are not only vital for biodiversity, but for humans too, with many studies documenting the positive effects experiencing nature has on our mental and physical health. If these meadows are developed, many of the residents from Brislington East, where most of the area is located, would struggle to find another green, nature-rich space near their home, as one in five have no access to a car.
This would be extremely unfortunate, as almost 40% of them also have an illness or health condition which limits day-to-day activities, so would really benefit if the meadows remained.
Priest argued that:
These sites are really important to protect. Nature has an asset value to communities. They provide so much more than only nature. They provide leisure spaces, and are really healing. It’s important to look at communities as a whole, and put houses on spaces that don’t have nature. This particular site is a really beautiful green space, surrounded by industrial land. We don’t have an abundance of nature in central Bristol, and this is a rare, wild landscape with lots of benefit, not just nature but also people. If we can’t save these designated sites, then why designate them? You would think these sites, reserved for nature, would be the last spaces we’re developing on, but they seem to be the first.
The Community Planning Alliance (CPA) provides support and resources for campaign groups, such as Save Brislington Meadows, and its Grassroots Map shows there are more than 700 of these fighting against environmentally damaging projects.
CPA also lobbies for a planning system which better protects the environment and allows communities to have greater influence in the planning of local developments, while delivering truly affordable housing. More than 11,000 people have so far sent the CPA report Homes For Everyone to their MPs, demanding change to housing policies and practice.
The planning system favours developers over nature
Caroline Dibden, co-founder of CPA, has been involved in various aspects of planning for 30 years, and believes the system always profits the developer, while doing very little for those people living in insecure or inadequate housing or emergency accommodation, and the species struggling to survive because of habitat destruction and fragmentation.
Dibden said:
There are many developers with a lot of money in their pockets, who are lobbyists, trying to persuade people at government level that this is how they will solve the issue. They also have a high powered legal team, if not a KC, and they’ll have an ecologist they’ve paid to say ‘No! We can move the bats or the newts, or put that ancient woodland somewhere else! ’Local community groups are being blamed by the government for stopping development, but this is untrue. It’s really difficult to do.
Significant changes have been made to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – a document dictating how development should occur across England, and these changes could have serious implications for nature, and communities. With the promise of 1.5 million houses, and around 12 new towns consisting of hundreds of thousands more, the government has significantly raised the housing targets across the country, now making it mandatory for councils to meet their housing needs, and forcing them to accept development on green spaces, and also green belt land, if necessary.
Professor of planning Malcolm Tait said that:
The higher housing targets Local Authorities now have to deliver means that most Local Plans that have already been made are now becoming increasingly irrelevant. So for the next two or three years, developers will essentially have a chance to chose any site they want to.They can say ‘Well, there’s such an urgent need for housing, I don’t need to wait for my site to be allocated as a housing area in the Local Plan. I’m just going to chance putting this site forward.
With deputy prime minister and housing secretary, Angela Rayner, claiming protections for endangered species are “needless barriers” to economic growth, alarm bells are ringing after the publication of the government’s Planning Reform Working Paper, in which it proposes to reduce requirements for on-site ecological assessment, amend the Habitats Regulations, and move to a new form of reporting, called the Environmental Outcomes Report.
ARC’s conservation director Jim Foster said:
The recent proposals suggest the government wishes to amend the legislation that provides the protections for wildlife, although they don’t explain the detail. We are concerned they will, in some way, end up diluting the protections, or even taking them away altogether.
Nature Restoration Fund: Habitat destruction allowed, if developers contribute financially
While these government policies are designed to strip away barriers to growth, by saving developers time and money, they will also weaken environmental protections. Individual site level assessments and mitigation measures will no longer be needed before building on a site, if developers pay into a Nature Restoration Fund (NRF), which would fund larger-scale environmental projects elsewhere. The NRF will likely allow developers to bulldoze habitats and destroy biodiversity on a development site, while paying to restoring it somewhere else. According to Foster, there is also another implication of paying into this fund:
Our concern is that somewhere else may be a long way from where people live, and we are effectively allowing a system whereby you could create ‘wildlife ghettos’. We don’t want that connection between people and nature to be disrupted any more than it has to be, and we don’t want the ghettoization of wildlife. It’s really important for people to be connected to wildlife, and that ideally needs to involve the direct encounter, whether in gardens or the local park. Any government policies that water down that connection would be bad for people as well as wildlife. People need that access to wildlife, not only for their health but also so they grow up to value nature and take decisions to protect it.
The government’s housing target does not result from deeper analysis of how many people need what type of homes, so will do very little to address the real housing challenges unless true affordability is put at the centre of its building plans. Although developers are required to build a certain number of ‘affordable’ homes in a new development, most of these are still too expensive to buy or rent, for the people who really need them. Developers can even avoid fulfilling their quota of affordable housing, by claiming their development will lose money.
According to Chris Bailey, national campaigns manager at Action on Empty Homes, what is really needed is more ‘social’ housing. There are currently 200,000 less social homes than when Cameroon was in office, and one million less than when Thatcher was prime minister – and we now have more people. Most were sold off, through right to buy, and around half then became privately rented – defined by low security, and high levels of unaffordability.
Bailey said that:
A wealthy politician may think the sharp end of the housing crisis is your kids not being able to afford to buy a house that would be worth three times as much in 10 years time, but in reality it is the 120,000 plus families- the number is growing each year- who live in really rubbish temporary accommodation, often with no proper living conditions. To stop the housing crisis you need to help these 120,000 families, not by building large executive homes on greenfield sites, or new towns full of allegedly affordable housing, where you have to be on a household income of £65,000 to afford it, but by providing social housing. We’re spending a lot of time talking about the 1.5 million homes that don’t exist, but we should be a lot more focused on the 1.5 million that do exist- and that’s a relatively conservative estimate of vacancy, just in England.
Retrofitting empty homes – the cheapest and most sustainable way to solve the housing crisis
Action on Empty Homes is not only advocating for social housing through the building of social homes and re-purposing of private rentals, but also by calling for a new national Empty Homes Programme and the retrofitting of existing empty homes, to bring them back to use, which is much more sustainable than new build.
The government’s house building targets would make it impossible to meet our net-zero targets by 2050 and, unless the right houses are built at the right price for those who really need them, they will do nothing to solve the housing crisis.
In London, where twice as many new homes have been built compared to the number of new households, long-term vacancies have increased by over 80% in less than a decade, while house prices have doubled and rents have gone through the roof. A million people are in poverty because of housing costs, while, at the same time, a large investor-driven short-let market has emerged, with houses serving as an asset rather than a place to live. The East London borough of Newham currently has more than 6,000 homeless households, and a 40,000-person housing waiting list for a social rented home.
The future of both housing and nature in the UK hangs in a delicate balance, with the decisions we make today shaping the landscapes and communities of tomorrow. Economic growth and housing should not come at the expense of nature, and the well-being of future generations.
Featured image supplied
