Keir Starmer has declared war on £100m HS2 bat shed - but has he got a solution?
Has Sir Keir Starmer picked a fight with a bat tunnel that - in time - he will eventually discover he just can't win?
For the last six months, the prime minister has singled out the most hated construction site in Britain for criticism - a kilometre-long, £100m shed to protect bats in Buckinghamshire from the high speed trains of the future.
Sir Keir regularly thunders that this is the emblem of a broken planning system. His chancellor says such things will never happen again. But is their joint political sonar advanced enough to avoid a collision in the coming months?
Recent weeks have seen a slew of announcements from Number 10 to prove they are taking on the "blockers" in order to get Britain building.
But government sources conceded to Sky News they are yet to reveal a plan which would stop such structures having to be built again in future.
HS2 will continue to build this bat tunnel, due to be complete in 2027, come what may. A compromise plan - that would see developers pay into a single government-controlled pot - has left experts and industry figures unimpressed, saying it would not stop another bat tunnel.
The experts also warn that they struggle to see how the government prevents future absurd and costly structures without repealing nature and habitat laws we inherited from the EU.
To roll back on these protections would mean not only war with the environmental movement, but also breaching our trade agreement with the EU - all to get Britain building again.
There is no obvious answer, yet ministers on Monday insisted one is still coming soon.
This comes as today Sky News shows the first ever pictures of the HS2 bat tunnel, showing the scale and breath of the ten-figure development through the Buckinghamshire countryside and taken despite our request for permission to go on site by the government-owned company being declined.
By scrambling through trees and trudging through muddy public footpaths, we were able access open space close enough to the structure, to film the site in detail with a drone without crossing into HS2 land - and it makes quite the spectacle.
Three miles north west of Aylesbury, cutting through the countryside like a scar and wedged between two industrial waste incinerators, we show from the sky the roofless skeleton of the kilometre-long shed which will insulate railway tracks being built in Buckinghamshire - and protect the bats.
The aim is to stop a rare breed known as the Bechstein, which lives in an ancient woodland adjacent to the route, from hitting future high speed trains when they run from London to Birmingham.
The entire structure exists so that HS2 can comply with "The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017" - a set of regulations which protects rare species, derives from the EU Habitats Directive and remains in force in the UK to this day despite Brexit.
Although often wrongly summarised as meaning "no bat death is acceptable", regulator Natural England did advise HS2 that to comply with this law, the company would need to maintain the "favourable conservation status" for the 300 bats once construction was complete. No easy feat.
HS2 executives mulled digging a tunnel, noise-based deterrents and rerouting the line, which would slow down the High Speed trains and prove too expensive. They also looked at barriers alongside the railway or a looser netting structure over the railway - but none of these would have been guaranteed to deliver the standard of protection required by law.
But their engineers and consultants advised the cheapest, legally safest route was the shed being built today. And after four years of meetings with the local council, construction began and continues to this day.
The government's growth mission champion, Dan Tomlinson MP, who visited the bat tunnel site with Sky News, said reform is vital.
"We need to find a way to reduce the cost of infrastructure in this country. Yes, protecting our wildlife too. But if we don't do that, we won't be able to build and we won't be able to make this country grow again, which is something that's been lacking for so long," he told me.
But can they stop this in future? The government insists the answers will come in as-yet-unpublished future planning legislation and yesterday government doubled down on its ambition.
"Spending vast sums to build a 'bat tunnel' is ludicrous," said a spokesman.
"For too long, regulations have held up the building of homes and infrastructure, blocking economic growth and doing little for nature. That is why we are introducing new planning reforms and a nature restoration fund to unblock the building of homes and infrastructure and improve outcomes for our natural world. This will deliver a win-win for the economy and nature."
But a nature restoration fund may not provide all the answers, according to experts.
Under this plan, the government is proposing that developers who potentially fall foul of habitat and nature rules give money to a pot to fund delivery of wider strategic projects that help nature, rather than trying to compensate for each potential breach of the habitat regulations.
Lawyers think that the idea of a fund makes sense for groups of projects affecting exactly the same species and habitat, but the majority of problems arise where a single project creates its own issues - as is the case of HS2 and the bat tunnel.
"The concept of pooling funds for a grand compensation project which ticks the habitats regulations box for a number of projects onshore therefore seems challenging," wrote Catherine Howard from law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.
"It is certainly going to take a lot of time, effort and cost for the government or regulators to think through what sort of onshore strategic compensation might need to be put in place, and then to deliver it.
"Can decisions be made in the meantime reliant on the promise that such compensation will come forward?".
But if there isn't a compromise option which appeals to ministers, repealing or downgrading habitat and nature rules is the only option.
This, however, would be likely to put the UK in breach of a number of international treaties, including the Trade and Cooperation Agreement entered into by the UK and the European Union in April 2021 to govern post Brexit relations and maintain a "level playing field".
Pro-growth pressure group Britain Remade says while promises of stopping future bat tunnels should be applauded, "there is a real risk is that if their planning bill doesn't include changes to inherited EU law on protected sites and species, we're stuck with the worst of both worlds: a status quo that stops us building and also fails to protect the countryside".
But attempts to change those laws would cross a red line for environmental campaigners. The RSPB, which has 1.2 million members, is already sounding the alarm over the rhetoric from Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves.
Chief executive Beccy Speight told me while some parts of government are taking a "constructive" approach, her organisation would fight any attempt to water down the nature laws.
"I'm am absolutely clear that we can't go backwards in terms of the protections we already have in place for nature, because nature is on its knees and we need to do something about that," she told Sky News.
Sir Keir has made ending ludicrous bat tunnels the test of his planning reforms time after time. This could prove a much trickier issue than anyone anticipated.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
EU seeks to lower a price cap on Russian oil and discourage Nord Stream pipeline investors
The European Union wants to lower a cap on the price of Russian oil to deprive the Kremlin of extra profits to fund its war in Ukraine as part of a new raft of sanctions aimed at forcing Moscow to the negotiating table, senior officials said on Tuesday. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc is 'proposing to lower the oil price cap from $60 to $45, which is lower than the market price, and lowering the oil price cap will hit Russia's revenues hard.' Kallas said the EU also wants to impose 'sanctions on the Nord Stream pipelines to prevent Russia generating any revenue in the future. In this way, it sends a clear signal we are not going back to business as usual.' All 27 EU member countries must all agree for the sanctions to enter force. In 2023, Ukraine's Western allies limited sales of Russian oil to $60 per barrel but the price cap was largely symbolic as most of Moscow's crude — its main moneymaker — cost less than that. Still, the cap was there in case oil prices rose. Oil income is the linchpin of Russia's economy, allowing President Vladimir Putin to pour money into the armed forces while avoiding worsening inflation for everyday people and a currency collapse. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she assumed that the price cap would be discussed and agreed among the leaders of the Group of Seven major world economic powers when they meet in Canada on June 15-17. She said the United States and its G7 partners realize 'that the oil price has lowered so much that the effectiveness of the cap is to be questioned, and therefore we all want to lower the oil price from $60 per barrel down to $45 per barrel.' The Nord Stream gas pipelines were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany but are not in operation. They were sabotaged in 2022, but the source of the underwater explosions has remained a major international mystery. The Commission has said that it wants to impose sanctions on the operating consortium to discourage investors from trying to use the pipelines in future. The blasts happened as Europe attempted to wean itself off Russian energy sources following the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and contributed to tensions that followed the start of the war. Von der Leyen noted on Tuesday that at the beginning of the war in 2022, 'Russia had 12 billion euros ($14 billion) of energy revenues from fossil fuels" from Europe per month. "And now we're down to 1.8 billion (euros).' The new EU sanctions would also target Russia's banking sector, with the aim of limiting the Kremlin's ability to raise funds or carry out financial transactions. A further 22 Russian banks will be hit with measures, von der Leyen said. An export ban worth some 2.5 billion euros would also be imposed, and the assets frozen of more than 20 Russian and foreign companies alleged to be providing support to the Kremlin's war machine. Von der Leyen said the sanctions are aimed at forcing Russia into serious talks about peace with Ukraine. 'We need a real ceasefire, and Russia has to come to the negotiating table with a serious proposal,' she told reporters. The EU has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia since Putin ordered his troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Around 2,400 officials and 'entities' – often government agencies, banks and organizations – have been hit. It's last raft of sanctions, imposed on May 20, targeted almost 200 ships in Russia's sanction-busting shadow fleet of tankers, and tightened trade restrictions to stop produce that could be used for military purposes from reaching Russia's armed forces.
The Guardian
43 minutes ago
- The Guardian
What's behind Keir Starmer's decision to back nuclear power?
Keir Starmer has committed the UK to its first significant stake in a new nuclear power plant since the 1980s. The decision to invest almost £18bn of taxpayer money into the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk was welcomed by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, as the beginning of a 'golden age' of nuclear investment that would be critical to the government's net zero goals. The government said on Tuesday it would commit £14.2bn to the project, including the £2.7bn it earmarked for Sizewell C in the autumn budget. It has already committed £3.6bn to Sizewell over the past two years. Britain's nuclear renaissance will also include spending about £2.5bn of taxpayer money building some of Europe's first small modular reactors (SMR), after the government gave the green light to plans for Rolls-Royce to build three in the UK by the early 2030s. For critics, the technology's high costs and lengthy construction time have always eclipsed the benefits of abundant low-carbon electricity, given Hinkley Point C's current price tag of up to £35bn and repeated delays. There are also persistent concerns over the safety of nuclear reactors, and the disposal of nuclear waste. But questions over whether countries can meet the growing demand for electricity without fossil fuels, and avoid blackouts, mean many governments now believe nuclear represents a price worth paying. Megawatt for megawatt, nuclear power is far more expensive than most renewable energy technologies. But, unlike wind and solar farms, nuclear reactors do not need investment in battery backup technologies to provide a steady, reliable source of low-carbon power. The guaranteed electricity price offered to Hinkley Point C was initially £92 per megawatt-hour but this will fall to £89.50/MWh with the go-ahead for Sizwell C, under the terms of the government's contract with French state-owned EDF. By contrast, the guaranteed price for offshore windfarms which were successful in last year's subsidy auction was just under £59 per megawatt-hour. 'The upfront cost [of nuclear] is undoubtedly high,' said Dr Iain Staffell, an associate professor at Imperial College London. '£14bn could fund around 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind versus just 3.2 GW of nuclear. But, these reactors will run day and night, especially valuable when the wind is not blowing.' Prof Mark Wenman, also at Imperial College London, added that the costs needed to be balanced against the fact that these reactors 'will produce low carbon electricity for 80 or possibly 100 years, 24/7, providing around a 10th of the current UK electricity needs'. 'Once paid for, nuclear reactors produce the cheapest electricity of any kind, so this investment should be seen as future-proofing the UK electricity system,' Wenman said. Experts believe that powering a country on 100% renewable energy is technically possible. But there is clear evidence that grid systems running predominantly on wind and solar power can be more expensive in the long run, and could be at higher risk of blackouts. This is because renewable energy cannot help to keep the electrical frequency of the grid stable at around 50Hz in the same way that the spinning turbines of a power plants have done in the past by creating inertia. The answer, according to the government's National Energy System Operator (Neso), is to encourage renewables to become the backbone of the energy system while keeping alternatives such as nuclear, biomass and gas to provide backup for when renewable resources are low and grid stability is needed. The government's independent climate advisers agree. The Climate Change Committee recommends that the UK's nuclear capacity doubles by 2050 because while it is 'relatively expensive on a levelised cost basis' it can provide 'valuable zero-carbon generation at scale'. Britain risks losing the benefits offered by nuclear plants by shutting its ageing nuclear reactors faster than it can build new ones – leaving a gap in the UK's supplies of low-carbon electricity at a time when demand for clean energy is growing. The UK's five existing nuclear power reactors generated 14% of the country's electricity last year – down from the industry's late-1990s peak when 18 nuclear reactors provided more than a quarter of Britain's power. Four of these plants are due to close before the end of the decade, even with plans to extend their lifetimes, while only one nuclear power plant is under construction. The Hinkley Point C project in Somerset was originally due to begin generating electricity by 2017 but it has been delayed until the early 2030s. Driving Britain's nuclear renaissance is the tech industry's appetite for nuclear power. Starmer unveiled plans for a once-in-a-generation nuclear expansion earlier this year alongside an open invitation to tech companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon to invest in AI datacentres in Britain, which could be powered by small modular reactors. This is because world's biggest tech companies are investing in extending the life of nuclear plants and building small modular reactors to help meet the enormous power demands of their datacentres. This growing demand is expected to accelerate with the adoption of artificial intelligence. Earlier this month Meta struck a deal to keep one nuclear reactor of a US utility company in Illinois operating for an extra 20 years to help supply the company's datacentres with low-carbon power. It follows a similar deal from Google to supply its datacentres with nuclear power from half-dozen small reactors built by a California utility company. In addition, Microsoft has paid for the restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the most serious nuclear accident and radiation leak in US history. 'They are very keen to get the datacentres in and they're very alive to the fact that the power is a big issue,' Starmer said.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Romanian president could nominate a prime minister this week
BUCHAREST, June 10 (Reuters) - Romanian President Nicusor Dan said on Tuesday he could nominate a prime minister this week provided pro-European parties reach an agreement on measures needed to lower the European Union's highest budget deficit and prevent a ratings downgrade. Centrist Dan, who won a divisive presidential vote in May that saw the far right gain ground, must form a ruling majority that has until the end of June to approve deficit cutting measures to avoid a downgrade to below investment grade. The European Commission, ratings agencies and analysts have said Romania cannot reduce its shortfall over seven years to the EU's 3% threshold as agreed without hiking taxes, but Dan and the four pro-European parties have proved reluctant to enforce unpopular measures, focusing instead on cuts to state spending. "There is a hierarchy of priorities, first cutting useless state spending, then merging some institutions, rescheduling some investments to 2026 and lastly possible tax hikes," Dan said during a visit to neighbouring Moldova. "I hope we will reach to the tax side as least as possible." Dan said the parties had identified a list of 60-80 possible measures, but had yet to agree on any. The president, who has a semi-executive role, added that pending the talks he could nominate a PM this week. Two sources told Reuters ratings agencies had told a London panel in May they were ready to downgrade Romania from the last rung of investment grade unless they saw convincing measures including tax hikes. The next rating review is in August. Earlier this month the European Commission opened the possibility of freezing some EU funds for Romania next year. Brussels, ratings agencies and the IMF have said hikes to value added tax or changes to Romania's flat 10% tax on income would be the most effective. "It needs to be a solid plan, two big measures that everyone can price are better than 50 that nobody can evaluate," one of the London sources said. "How can anyone trust you that you'll do what's needed in the 7-year adjustment plan?" Claudiu Nasui, a lawmaker from the centre-right Save Romania Union, one of four pro-EU parties engaged in talks, is a strong proponent of state spending cuts inspired by Argentinian President Javier Milei. He told Reuters that he had identified 34 billion lei ($7.73 billion) worth of cuts that could be made in the second half of the year without cutting healthcare, education and defence. However, they included cutting state-funded investment schemes that were easier to tap than EU funds with little oversight, a political instrument for mayors that parties were unlikely to approve cutting. "Any measure to cut the deficit will make parties unpopular, spending cuts or tax hikes, you just need political will," Nasui said. "I often look at a street trash bin outside my office, there are always people rummaging in it. Hiking taxes will not hit us, but it will hit those poor people." ($1 = 4.3977 lei)
