Changing the nature of our policy and planning rhetoric about nature

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Changing the nature of our policy and planning rhetoric about nature
Changing the nature of our policy and planning rhetoric about nature. Image: © CHUNYIP WONG | iStock

Government rhetoric casting nature policy as bureaucratic red tape strangling much-needed housing delivery and economic growth overlooks the natural world’s critical role in both development and prosperity, argues Alister Scott, professor of environmental geography and planning at  Northumbria University

“We can’t have a situation where a newt is more protected than people who desperately need housing,” Housing secretary Angela Rayner, Sky News, 8 December 2024.

Angela Rayner was putting forward a soundbite on how the government’s commitment to building 1.5m homes was more important than a protected species.

However, this kind of populist statement pitting nature against people is not only ill conceived; it fundamentally fails to understand the role of nature as critical infrastructure in the development process.

The UK is currently one of the most nature-depleted countries in the developed world, according to the National Biodiversity Network’s State of Nature report 2023, with declines ongoing.

The rhetoric coming from the new Labour government has a strong anti-nature slant, with economic growth the overriding priority. Significantly, the environment did feature in Keir  Starmer’s recent six pledges but only as a hurdle to much-needed development and infrastructure projects, such as costly bat tunnels.

Such a one-dimensional view of prosperity is at odds with the Treasury’s independently  commissioned Dasgupta Review (2021), which recommended that we urgently need to rethink the way that prosperity is measured if we are to realise and protect the multiple values of nature.

It is also at odds with the purpose of the planning system in its pursuit of sustainable development. Developments are not stopped due to protected species or important  habitats. There is something called the mitigation hierarchy, with its four sequential decision steps: Avoid, Minimise, Restore and Offset, which have a fundamental role to play  in shaping good development.

The current government rhetoric seems to bypass the first three steps in favour of offsets, which is misplaced and can lead to perverse outcomes actually hindering economic growth.

An inconvenient truth

This government, like many of its predecessors, has declared war on the regulations that  supposedly stymie development, but there is an inconvenient regulatory truth regarding the way regulations protect societal interest.

They actually help foster innovation, ensuring development is in the right place, assuming they are adequately followed. This prevents extra costs further down the line, such as through flooding or pollution.

The value of nature underpins our economy and society – and our existence. Recent data from the ONS natural capital accounts (2024) reveals that the total asset value of nature in terms of the ecosystem services it provides is £1.8 trillion with £87bn annual value.

When we have access to nature it provides a natural health service for us all, with the data showing a health benefits total asset value of £489bn. Conversely, degraded and poorly managed peatland has led to climate regulating services having a value of -£212m. This must be addressed.

Establishing a UK nature policy to comply with

Rather than attacking nature, we should be integrating it into our development projects, much in the way Building with Nature, the first UK benchmark for identifying what good nature development looks like, does.

This would raise the standard of our built developments to the benefit of people and nature – as well as developers’ bank balances – due to the uplift in prices. The planning system  does not work well with any focus on one metric in isolation – whether it is 11m trees or 1.5m homes.

The siloed nature of our thinking is at odds with the interlinked nature of our key problems  like economic growth, climate change and health and wellbeing. They are not solved in isolation; rather they need to be solved collectively with the public at the heart of the  process from the outset, not bypassed to secure supposed quick wins.

The Aarhus Convention, to which the UK is a signatory, requires the public to be consulted and have a say over major developments with environmental impacts. Poor or inadequate consultations can lead to legitimate legal challenge and international embarrassment.

The lack of recognition of the legal commitments to the Aarhus Convention is evident in comments made by the current government on the natural environment and people’s legitimate right to participate in planning developments.

There is a more fundamental maxim at play here, however; working with nature rather  than against it will secure longer-term wins for the economy and environment but governments are in office for five years and therefore favour short-term policy foci. Therein lies the conundrum.

Regarding newts, I recommend the secretary of state visit Hampton a large-scale housing development in place for 30 years with one of the largest great crested newt populations in Europe. This development was led by David Jarvis Associates and provides an exemplar of
working with nature, rather than trying to trash it with some populist soundbite.

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