Labour’s ‘blinkered’ drive to build risks pushing nature to point of no return, wildlife experts warn
The government’s “brash” push for development could accelerate nature loss to a point of no return, leading conservation campaigners warn 11 hours before a new law is due to be passed.
The RSPB and the Wildlife Trust say Labor’s efforts to speed up construction projects will be disastrous for wildlife, habitats and green spaces and could mean greater use of chemicals.
Organizations are doing their best to change the most “destructive” parts of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is in its final stages in the House of Lords.
Ministers are also considering relaxing “net biodiversity gain” rules and experts fear next week’s budget could include more anti-nature measures.
But 65,000 people emailed MPs asking them to support changes to the planning bill that would ensure environmental protection.
Labor MPs privately admitted they supported those opposing the bill, but were whipped to vote against the eco changes.
RSPB chief executive Beccy Speight said ecosystems depended on species diversity. “It’s an interconnected network; it’s like a game of Jenga. If you keep removing pieces, at some point the tower will fall. I don’t think the Planning Bill recognizes that.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been accused of stripping away protections for the natural world to boost the economy.
The bill overrides habitat and nature protections, which it claims hinder the government’s goal of building 1.5 million homes.
But 10 days ago, the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee found that nature was not a barrier to new housing, branding anti-nature rhetoric a “lazy narrative” and warning it was needed for resilient neighbourhoods.
Wildlife organizations say the moves go against “all good scientific evidence” and create a “perfect storm” that threatens ancient woodlands and wildlife including badgers, dormouses and sand lizards.
Wildlife Trusts’ Craig Bennett said the bill also eliminated local decision-making.
He said: “I think in a year or two’s time if local communities start to see bulldozers moving through some of the most precious green spaces where they walk their dogs and that’s the first thing they realize is some of the threat, I think people are going to be very angry with the government.”
Wildlife will need to be removed from an area under a new environmental distribution plan, Sally Hayns said. CEO of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.
“They either need to be found, captured and removed, which probably won’t happen, or they need to be killed,” he said.
“I don’t see the public supporting developers literally sanitizing sites to take advantage of this new approach.”
Controversially, the legislation allows developers to tick the environmental liability box by simply paying nature restoration tax.
“Each bat eats between two and 4,000 small insects a night, and if we didn’t have bats to combat natural pests, we’d have a lot more animal diseases, a lot more crop diseases and a lot more human diseases, all of which would have to be controlled with chemical interventions. So bats actually provide a really important ecosystem service,” Ms Hayns said.
The committee blamed slow housebuilding on “a lack of intergovernmental policy cohesion and coordination, fragmented data systems and a lack of ecological, planning and construction skills”.
Research by the RSPB found that the public overwhelmingly do not want nature to be sacrificed for short-term growth.
Exempting small sites from biodiversity net gain rules would hinder the green economy and allow developers to avoid compensation liabilities worth £250 million a year, the Wildlife Trust says.
Trusts say the government’s changes to nature conservation risk undermining business confidence in private investment to restore nature.
Ms Speight said: “We know, for example, that we’ve lost 38 million birds in the last 50 years. Nature is in a really bad way and this government promised to be the most nature-positive government this nation has ever seen. And then we get all the anti-nature rhetoric we’ve had over the last six months.”
A government spokesman said: “We have inherited a failed system that prevents the building of vital homes and infrastructure, stunts growth and does nothing to help nature recover.
“Our Planning and Infrastructure Bill creates a win-win for the economy and nature, delivering better outcomes for the environment and helping us build 1.5 million homes to reignite the dream of homeownership.”
Earlier this month the government forced MPs to vote against perforated bricks for swallows, despite the opposition promising to support the move.
