3 days ago
I live in a UK beauty spot threatened by Labour's planning bill. It could become a disaster zone
The UK needs houses. The UK needs open spaces, and wilderness. The Labour government's Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which cleared its second reading in the House of Commons with a majority of 256 votes, is only interested in the former.
At the end of 2024, Keir Starmer declared that homes must have a higher priority than nature and the environment, as ministers outlined reforms that could allow more building on England's green belt.
Housing minister Angela Rayner backed him, asserting that 'we can't have a situation where a newt is more protected than people who desperately need housing'.
The populist punditry that would once have been anathema to leaders and politicians in general is designed to detract from the dire consequences if the bill is passed. Lawyers, environmental charities – including the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts – and activists have assessed that more than 5,000 of England's most vulnerable protected natural habitats are at risk of being destroyed by development thanks to Labour's new planning bill, which has been dubbed a 'licence to kill'.
These would include many of the UK's favourite holiday destinations, such as areas that fall under designations like Sites of Special Scientific Interest, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, Special Protection Areas, Special Areas of Conservation, and much-loved nature-rich parts of National Parks and National Landscapes (formerly AONBs), like the New Forest and the Forest of Bowland.
As I live in the Forest of Bowland, I have a stake in this debate. I live in a ribbon of farmland that lies between the Forest of Bowland proper and Pendle Hill, which is part of the same protected National Landscape. South of here is East Lancashire, one of the most densely populated parts of the UK.
For residents of Burnley, Blackburn and Accrington, Bowland is the second nearest large green space, after the West Pennine Moors.
But Bowland is different. As the 'Forest' in its name suggests it is a former hunting chase, and while there are some pockets of grouse moor management that still rile most ordinary residents and visitors, swathes of the park are open country, ideal for hiking, cycling and family picnics.
For decades, access was complicated here, with grouse butts and private lands blocking walkers. Just two decades ago, much of Bowland was opened up to walkers for the first time when the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gave general right of access to the public for the purposes of open-air recreation on foot. People can walk, run and – where permitted – ride bikes wherever there are paths.
To be candid, Bowland doesn't have Instagram-friendly summits to bag or famous poets' houses to swoon over. It doesn't attract countless car-tourers or caravan-users. It is absolutely nothing like the Lake District or nearby Yorkshire Dales. Many of its upland areas are boggy and only the very well-acquainted would want to negotiate the steep-sided valleys or gully-riven, heather-clad slopes.
But the relatively low visitor numbers are great for nature. A sizeable central section of the 300-square-mile National Landscape is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of the habitats it helps to protect and its internationally important bird populations. One of these is the merlin, the UK's smallest bird of prey (it's only about the size of a thrush).
On my last visit I saw one at a distance, seated – ironically – on a grouse butt. During the same half-day visit I also spotted meadow pipits, curlews, skylarks, a stonechat, a greylag goose, and nesting peregrines. The most surprising sighting was a couple of ring ouzels – a red-listed species (that is, 'of high conservation concern') and members of the thrush family that dwells on the uplands.
The absolute high point was the bird for which Bowland had become famous: the hen harrier. At first I saw males and females skimming across the top of the heather. This was satisfying enough; hen harriers are among the most persecuted birds in the country. Then I was treated to a sky dance, which is when a male hen harrier performs extraordinary aerial stunts to show off to females, to warn off rival males, or – perhaps – just for fun.
The one I saw did Red Arrows-style vertical leaps, back flips, twists and turns, against a clear blue sky. It was one of those moments in nature, all of five minutes, that felt life-enhancing and deeply moving.
Does any of this matter as much as the desperate housing situation? Is wildlife really as important as new estates? Is it not time rural England accepted that cities can't accommodate all the new houses and flats? Would Bowland not in fact benefit from development? Am I trying to promote tourism and leisure – arguably luxuries for only some members of society – and ignoring the needs of millions of people?
The honest answers to all these questions is clear to anyone who lives in places like the Forest of Bowland. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted nations on earth. How often do we hear now the distressing news that butterflies are disappearing, that once familiar birds have become near-extinct, that hedgehogs are on the same path already taken by red squirrels?
Even my greenish patch within the greater Bowland area is, frankly, a classic farm-ageddon of dry-stone wall-to-wall sheep fields, with very limited birdlife and a worrying lack of insect life. The flora that lies outside the sheep-mowed areas is not particularly diverse. The trees are, as often as not, plantations of conifers. This is precisely why we need to protect, at all costs, those areas where species thrive or, at least, have a chance to revive.
Bowland is the last place to reimagine how England should reside in the coming decades. As well as being an important, if imperfect, space for nature – as outlined above – it has risible road connections, no railways passing through it, and only a couple of bus services that run infrequently and never after dark.
The whole area is poorly supplied with the essential, basic amenities communities need to thrive, from schools and hospitals to theatres and cinemas to local shops and places to eat and drink.
Dropping blocks of beige housing – this area seems to specialise in hideous and overpriced executive homes – would at best attract some retirees. Alternatively, if truly affordable housing were built in any useful quantities, the Government would have to seriously consider a new town project of some kind. The nearest urban areas – Preston, Blackburn, Lancaster – currently have deep-set housing, social and transport problems of their own.
They all take forever to reach on the winding country lanes that link, eventually, to the jammed and dangerous A59 – the one major trunk road that tears through the Ribble Valley in a blaze of boy-racers, trundling tractors and pelotons of unhappy cyclists.
Try this experiment in any of the 5,000-plus precious areas and the results will be the same. The tourism and leisure, exercise and inspiration that ordinary people get from being close to birdsong and surrounded by unsullied, unpeopled emptiness will be sacrificed to cover up the deep tragedy of 40 years (and counting) or poor planning by all shades of government, national and local.
Much of British wildlife is threatened. Nightingales, badgers, dormice, otters, butterflies, dragonflies, kingfishers, tufted ducks and egrets are just some of the beautiful creatures that the extant, already damaged natural areas help to conserve. If we wipe these out, and destroy the places they inhabit, what is there for people to do, to see, to admire?
The wealthy will go overseas, adding air miles. The rest of us will have nowhere to stretch our legs or lungs. Bowland is no paradise, no idyll. But Labour's short-sighted and unscientific scheme to fill the hills and vales with houses, in the face of criticism from experts from many camps, will turn it into a disaster zone.
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