Labour planning reforms ‘threaten New Forest'
Labour's planning reforms pose a threat to the New Forest, campaigners have warned.
The Wildlife Trusts and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) accused the Government of being on an 'ideological' war footing against the nation's environmental spaces.
They also claimed that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill going through Parliament, which overrides existing habitat and nature protections, breaks Labour's manifesto promises to protect and restore the natural environment.
The Office for Environmental Protection recently warned that the Bill represents a 'regression' in environmental law and would remove safeguards for nature.
The Government's own assessment of the Bill also found little evidence that green protections were a blocker to development.
The Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB said irreplaceable habitats such as chalk streams and ancient woodland, species such as hazel dormice and otters, and areas such as the New Forest and Peak District Moors would no longer be as strongly protected from development.
The groups said they had been calling for a series of amendments to tone down what they saw as the most damaging aspects of the Bill, but that the Government had failed to listen to their concerns or consider their 'constructive solutions'.
Now they want to see ministers remove part of the nature recovery section entirely, which they say replaces environmental protections with a weaker substitute.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill was introduced in March and comes as Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, and Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, argue that current nature rules have gone too far, often citing the £100 million HS2 bat tunnel.
Craig Bennett, the chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said: 'Before the general election, Labour promised to restore nature.
'Under a year later, the Chancellor is leading an ideological charge against the natural world despite it being the very foundation of the economy, society and people's health. Promises have been broken, and millions of people have been betrayed.'
Mr Bennett said the Bill in its current form 'fundamentally undermines' the Government's commitment to protect nature, describing proposals on nature recovery as a 'Trojan horse' and 'a misnomer'.
He also said the organisation was 'appalled' that the suggestions it had put forward to ministers had 'all been spurned'.
The organisations also published research on Thursday arguing that nature does not block economic growth.
It found that bats and great crested newts, protected species often cited in arguments for removing planning barriers, were a factor in just 3 per cent of planning appeal decisions.
Alongside the paper, a Savanta survey commissioned by The Wildlife Trusts suggests that less than a third (32 per cent) of the British public feel the Government has kept its promises to improve access to nature, promote biodiversity and protect wildlife.
The poll also found just 26 per cent of the 2,035 respondents believe the Government is taking the nature crisis seriously enough, while just 25 per cent said they would back building developments in their area even if they harmed the local environment.
'In the firing line'
Beccy Speight, the RSPB chief executive, said the organisation had engaged 'in good faith' with the Government for months, but that the current draft legislation would 'rip the heart out of environmental protections and risks sending nature further into freefall'.
'The fate of our most important places for nature and the laws that protect them are all in the firing line,' she said. 'That cannot be allowed to stand.
'The evidence clearly shows nature isn't a blocker to growth. The Government has identified the wrong obstacle to the problem it's trying to overcome, and that has led it to the wrong solutions.'
A Government spokesman said: 'We completely reject these claims. The Government has inherited a failing system that has delayed new homes and infrastructure while doing nothing for nature's recovery, and we are determined to fix this through our Plan for Change.
'That's why our Planning and Infrastructure Bill will deliver a win-win for the economy and nature by unblocking building and economic growth, and delivering meaningful environmental improvements.'
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