UK government admits almost no evidence nature protections block development
Environmental lawyer says it’s deeply frustrating that the Government is pushing major changes to conservation law without supporting data or research
Whitehall analysis provides no data or research to support the government argument that environmental legislation holds up building.
Ministers say the new bill will speed up housing developments and large infrastructure projects by allowing developers to avoid meeting environmental obligations to protect habitats and species such as barn owls, otters, bats and newts, at the site of their project, by paying into a central nature recovery fund (NRF) which will be used to create environmental improvement elsewhere.
Richard Broadbent, Environmental Lawyer at Freeths LLP, says:
“It is deeply frustrating that the Government is seeking to make the biggest changes to nature conservation law this country has seen for decades on the basis of no data or research in support of its key arguments.
“As usual, slashing environmental protections is offered up as a solution because it is easier and sounds rhetorically satisfying to do so rather than because there is evidence that it is needed or will work.
“This is reminiscent of Defra’s Habitats and Wild Birds Directives Implementation Review published in March 2012 not long after the Tories came to power. This Defra report found that of the 26,500 land use consultations Natural England received annually, it only objected to less than 0.5% on Habitats Regulations grounds and most of those objections were successfully dealt with at the planning stage.
“A Natural England information request I carried out in 2022 after the previous Government awarded itself powers to gut the Habitats Regulations in the Environment Act 2021 found that in the year April 2021 to March 2022 out of 32,056 land use consultations, just 15 were objected to on Habitats Regulations grounds (0.045%).
“Like any legal regime, over time reform is needed and the Habitats Regulations is no exception. This, however, should be carried out in a sensible and informed way. For example, rather than remove the protections under the Habitats Regulations new European sites guidance could be issued for example requiring greater proportionality in terms of the “reasonable scientific certainty” which is needed or on what is required for compensatory measures. Greater political support could be given to emerging nature markets, ensuring that they have the integrity and governance needed to ensure they thrive.
“Finally, a great deal of assistance could be provided if the Government invested in funding baseline data to underpin, for example, bat and dormouse district level licensing schemes”.
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