Planning for more hedgehogs?

can we get the law changed? And will it help?

Tuesday night I was giving a talk to the Wolvercote Women’s Institute - one of many similar talks I do each year … what were you talking to them about, I hear none of you ask!!

Waiting to perform for the Wolvercote WI!

In these hedgehog (just in case you were wondering!) talks I always make a reference to the daunting sounding National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). One thing I really admire about planners is their ability to read through such tedious documents while maintaining the appearance of being awake … or maybe it is just because I do not understand …

However little passion I have for the planning system, it is, undeniably, vitally important - for us, for our liveable environment, and, of course, for hedgehogs.

When I started this petition, back in the latter part of the Bronze Age, it was with the express goal of changing the NPPF … and we did get close … we got a shift in the ‘guidance’ as the late James Brokenshire said that hedgehog highways should be recommended for new housing estates … similar was said for swift bricks, more on them later.

But those guidelines and recommendations came with no teeth … which is why the petition and these mailings continue.

And now - well plans are afoot to rework the NPPF - and in the policy draft there is this …

Policy N2(f): “Minimise impacts on biodiversity and include features for species which support priority or threatened species such as swifts, bats and hedgehogs.”

I hope you can see from that snippet the sort of language we have to contend with … that is not a sentence written by someone with a love for the English language - or, in fact, any care for the pain such combinations of words may have on the minds of the more sensitive!

At first sight this might seem like a simple win for hedgehogs … but I fear there is more going on in these consultations …

The good news is that if N2(f) survives the process it will have some teeth - in that it will set an expectation for such things to be included. I talked to a friend who is far wiser than me - Dominic Woodfield, boss of the consultancy BioScan and he said,

“However the teeth will be dentures or molars rather than canines or incisors, as one cannot see a development failing to get planning permission due to non-compliance with N2(1)(f) - it will be effective more as a shaming exercise as anticipated by the authors in their reference to ‘compelling technical reasons’ with regard to swift boxes.

“My biggest fear here is that N2(1) (a-g) will be seen as a list of options, and that ticking the (f) box will be used to exert leverage against full compliance with (e.g.), e or g which already plenty woolly enough to wriggle out of as it is. My other fear is that this will be seen by planners, the development industry and Govt departments as the development industry and Govt making a concession to biodiversity and therefore “you can all shut up now, you’ve got what you wanted”. Much as this Govt appears to be currently doing with its slew of recent animal welfare legislation announcements, which I can already see being used by them to try and plug the holes it has caused in its green credentials by recent rhetoric around planning and the P&I Bill.

“Swift boxes were such low hanging fruit (even the development sector had no real opposition to them) that it was inevitable that they and other ‘easy to do within a development’ measures would make it this far. I just worry that they are seen by Govt and the development sector as ‘OK, now we’ve done enough’.”

It is so frustrating when what might seem like good news runs into the buffers of reality. And I do think that Dominic is right - with the same essential formulation of developers building for profit rather than councils building for need, the drive to crush ‘obstacles’ will be enormous. This, and previous, governments have made it clear that they are fed up with all the ‘green crap’ that is put in the way of extracting maximum profit.

So could it be that the delight of campaigners to get planning law changed in Scotland - to have swift bricks included in new buildings - has the potential to let developers off the hook for more onerous requirements?

At least it is a move in the right direction… I think it may be time to reestablish contact with the Ministers in charge … if they can do it for swifts in Scotland then they must do it for hedgehogs, everywhere!!

a headline to make me happy about my life choices (maybe!)

In other news … Google Alerts spits out so many odd things, and this is one of the best … if you want to see what it is all about … follow this link.