As the Coalition Government seeks to unshackle the economy - we're watching announcements with profound interest. No-one can argue that our economic woes don't demand urgent government action, but now is the time the commitment the Coalition has shown towards tackling our environmental crisis to shine through. Easy words - or profound commitment? Here's Martin Harper, RSPB's Conservation Director, on the subject.
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Why is it that the UK’s coastal wetlands haven’t suffered the levels of destruction seen around the world? How a threat to the Thames estuary over 40 years ago revolutionised nature conservation. I enjoyed talking to Charlie Moores about the Thames and it endless airport proposals – you can listen here on Talking Naturally.
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The Hoo peninsula in North Kent is not unfamiliar with threats to its most excellent natural environment. Leading the litany of potential destruction have been a variety of over-blown airport proposals. Not far behind was the proposal to develop the carbon-spewing Kingsnorth power station.
The area is very special to us here at the RSPB – one of our oldest nature reserves, Northward Hill, is at the heart of the peninsula and Cliffe Pools is a great place to get to know the wildlife of the Thames estuary.
Some of the wildlife and natural environment of Hoo is of international renown – places that number amongst the best in the world for which the UK has an international responsibility to safeguard.
Less celebrated is a wood that is set to become a new name that becomes familiar to readers of these posts – Chattenden Wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (so part of our network of nationally important wildlife sites) – the ‘special’ comes particularly from its population of woodland birds. In spring the woods, and increasingly the developing scrub nearby, resonates to the nocturnal carolling of nightingales. Not just one or two, but dozens.
Nightingale - the sound of sping. Photo credit – John Bridges (RSPB Images)
Now, nightingales are in trouble – their numbers have crashed during my lifetime. Where there were ten in the mid 60s – now there is only one. In the last decade their numbers have halved.
Kent (where I grew up and where I got to know nightingales) is still a stronghold for them – over a quarter of the English (and thus UK) population. So, nightingales put the special in this SSSI – it makes it one of the most important sites we have for them, and their liquid song has spread to the scrubby areas outside the designated site.
I’ve a horrible feeling that you know there is more to come!
And it’s true – a proposal for 5000 houses plus associated development, known as Lodge Hill, could damage some 35ha of the SSSI as well as destroy extensive areas of scrubby woodland that is summer home not only to nightingales but also turtle doves and cuckoos, birds that are also in serious decline.
We know Medway Borough Council is committed to protecting the natural environment and we work closely with them on many nature conservation issues – we are confident that they will listen carefully to our concerns.
Time is short for responding to this planning application, the RSPB will be objecting to the proposal in its current form and we would urge you to step up and add your voice.
Plans can be viewed online here. Responses can either be emailed to the planning.representations@medway.gov.uk or sent, marked for the attention of:
Carly Stoddart
Development, Economy and Transport
Regeneration, Community and Culture
Gun Wharf
Dock Road
Chatham
Kent
ME4 4TR
Here is a link to the on line consultation.
If you do respond you should include the planning number (MC/11/2516). The consultation date posted on the website is 6 December 2011 although we have been informed by Medway that we have until 12 December 2011 to respond.
Boris wants one. He really does. Lord Foster is the latest to design one. But time after time the proposals for an estuary airport in the Thames founder under the weight of reason, the massive costs and the unsustainable destruction of the coastal environment.
That it could be done is not in any doubt – the pell-mell loss of coastal wetlands world-wide is testament to the ‘if it can be built – it should be built’ approach to development.
The RSPB has stood against the damage that the estuary airport, in its many manifestations, will bring to the Thames – and that will continue.
Loping off chunks of the natural environment and lobbing them on the fire of the economy is too great a risk on this small crowded planet that we are turning into a pressure-cooker.
There are various polls running at the moment – please add your voice.
Here’s the local MP Mark Reckless
The Evening Standard
And the Daily Telegraph.
That may sound like Yoda's re-interpretation of a well-known sustainability slogan, but in fact it refers to a Parliamentary bill which today became the Localism Act 2011.
The RSPB has been a leading member of the Greenest Planning Ever coalition which has been campaigning on what was the Localism Bill for the last year, and until May this year it was my privilege to chair this group.
The Localism Act is principally about devolving power from Government in Westminster to local authorities and neighbourhoods. It introduces significant changes to the planning system in England by abolishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission, allows for the abolition of regional strategies, introduces a new 'duty to cooperate' for public bodies and a completely new system of neighbourhood planning.
Debate in Parliament on the bill was somewhat overshadowed by the public furore on the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) this autumn, but the two are closely linked.
There are many issues I could comment on, some good, some less so. To start on a positive note, it's worth remembering that as part of another NGO planning coalition back in 2007 (at one stage we called ourselves the Planning Disaster coalition) we campaigned against the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC). We lost the argument then in what became the Planning Act 2008, but our points were supported by the Conservative opposition and were carried forward into Government policy after the 2010 election. The IPC will now be merged with the Planning Inspectorate, which is ultimately responsible to the elected Secretary of State. So in the end, we won.
The end is less clear for the future of sustainable development, one of the key areas of debate on the Localism Act. Our hopes for a robust definition to be written into the Act were dashed, despite many attempts by Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs and peers to do this.
The Act was a golden opportunity to lay the ground work for a planning system based on robust principles for sustainable development, which integrates the needs of people, the economy and the environment. Without this legal definition in place we are facing the prospect of a system which gives the economy a trump card and fails to protect the green spaces that enrich our lives and allow nature to thrive.
Our only hope now is that the final version of the NPPF contains a strong definition of sustainable development, which should be based on the five guiding principles of the 2005 UK Sustainable Development Strategy. Being more positive, the Government has accepted that the strategy still stands. This is also exactly what the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons recommended after holding an inquiry specifically on the issue. Just in case you've forgotten what five principles are, here they are:
There's more, much more, including the future of strategic planning, neighbourhood plans, and a little section in the Act on local finance which is causing more than a little concern. But more of that another day.