In this week’s Countryfile column, Erin McDaid of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust says that cutting green regulations defies voters and fills corporate pockets at the public’s expense…
Plans announced by the Conservative Party at their recent party conference to scrap both Natural England and The Environment Agency, as well as rowing back on rules to improve energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of packaging, are being framed a way to cut ‘red tape’, boost house building and stimulate growth.
Another view might be that this is yet another attempt to undermine vital environmental protections, boost the profits for private businesses and shift costs directly onto councils and consumers.
The Restore Nature Now march taking place on Saturday 22 June 2024 in central London. The biggest demonstration in the run up to the General Election, as well as the biggest ever march for nature and climate. Photo: Submitted
Natural England (NE) and the Environment Agency (EA) are the ‘arms-length’ bodies set up by the government to protect and restore nature and to protect the wider environment from threats such as floods and pollution.
While not perfect, they perform hugely important roles, helping to ensure that laws designed to safeguard our shared environment are complied with and to help drive environmental restoration after decades of decline.
Time and time again, we see their valuable work framed as placing an unnecessary burden on developers and businesses; despite the fact that our wildlife is in steep decline and the fact that we face huge threats such as extreme weather, flooding and sewage pollution in our rivers and seas.
Care for nature spans the political divide. Photo: Robert Hoare
The announcement at the Conservative Party conference suggests that new rules linked to energy efficiency of new homes should be scrapped because they will lead to increased house prices – yet the evidence is clear that such measures could save homeowners thousands of pounds a year in heating costs.
Together with suggested changes to planning tools such as Section 106 Agreements – through which local councils recoup the costs of infrastructure such as roads, parks and schools from developers; the Conservatives claim that scrapping NE and the EA and the new energy efficiency rules could slash the cost of houses could be slashed by tens of thousands of pounds
Even if we take the suggestion that slashing red-tape and tearing up environmental protections would reduce the costs of housebuilding at face value – who’s to say that these ‘savings’ would be passed on to house buyers.
The housebuilding industry is one of the most successful lobby groups in the UK, and it appears that they’ve once again done an amazing job of convincing a political party that the way to get more home built it deregulation.
This claim doesn’t stack up when you consider that at any given time there are in the region of a million homes which already have planning permission in place.
With permission already granted, there must be other factors preventing developers from just getting on with it.
I would suspect that once the safety net provided by Natural England and the Environment Agency was removed and the quality standards lowered – house builders would continue to build at a similar rate and seek to maintain the market price to boost profit margins.
This is precisely the sort of ‘race to the bottom’ our environment cannot afford. Given the results of recent polling by the Wildlife Trusts, National Trust, RSPB, Woodland Trust and WWF – undertaken by More in Common – we know it is also not what the public – and voters – wish to see.
Concern for nature and the wish to see land protected is strong regardless of which political party people choose to vote for.
Some years ago, the Conservatives, when in Government, tried to massively weaken the planning system only to discover that their plans were hugely unpopular with their own MPs and local councillors -who knew they’d face the rath of local constituents and communities who care passionately about protecting nature on their local patch.
I suspect that when folk have had chance to look behind the headlines, they’ll realise that this is ‘ambitious’ deregulation plan is not so much a charter to deliver more housing and economic growth but more of a licence for developers to pass on costs to purchasers and local councils – with the public likely to be hit with even more cost in terms of local taxes.
Speaking following the announcement Craig Bennett OBE, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts described the conservatives’ tactics as ‘divisive and scapegoating’ as they portrayed environmental protection as an obstacle to development.
Frankly, I couldn’t agree more.
The claim that environmental and nature protections are a blocker to growth has been debunked – yet sadly political parties of various hues and persuasions continue to be drawn to this falsehood as a rallying cry.
Given the widespread passion for nature and people’s very real concerns about fundamental threats posed by extreme weather and nature loss, I suspect that any party nailing its colours to this particular mast will be taking a very real political risk.