You can read Natural England’s deliberations when deciding whether to go through with the designation, including the objections from the development corporation. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/u... - ThreadSky

roadscholar.bsky.social • 27 days ago

You can read Natural England’s deliberations when deciding whether to go through with the designation, including the objections from the development corporation.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1031169/board-paper-nebpu-106-01.pdf

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roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

The development corporation did its best to play the game. They’d hired experts on invertebrates, and on birds and on plants, to challenge Natural England’s case for designated their land

Natural England’s officers dismissed every objection, and explained why their original plan was right

roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

Nowhere in the development corporation’s objections are the words you might expect:

WE’RE TRYING TO BUILD 15,000 HOUSES, NEXT TO A HIGH SPEED RAIL STATION, DURING A HOUSING CRISIS. ARE YOU INSANE!?!

roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

HS1 Ltd, who run the railway, were a bit more direct. Their objection was that this destroyed the whole purpose to having a station there in the first place.

And Natural England’s response was as follows. Don’t read it for the words – read it for the words that are missing.

roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

Nothing about the railway. Nothing about the housing. Nothing about the decades of effort taken to get here. Nothing about the government’s policies. Nothing about people.

Regeneration and social impact are mentioned as something that they are legally prohibited from considering.

clatterbox.bsky.social•27 days ago

In my experience spiders absolutely love houses.

roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

That last point is weird, because in 2015 all public regulators were made subject to a growth duty – they are obliged to consider the impact of their activities on growth.

(Can’t imagine why anyone thought that was needed)

roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

But Natural England has decided that it isn’t a regulator. So it doesn’t do that.

All it does is fulfil a statutory requirement to protect all threatened species, wherever they are found.

It’s only following orders.

stefw.bsky.social•27 days ago

There’s an older story about Ebbsfleet where the CEO of the delivery vehicle pleaded with Prescott to get Highways England to prioritise a junction upgrade. He said he couldn’t tell HE what to do. Took 20 years. Maybe if it’d been quicker they wouldn’t have found the spiders.

roadscholar.bsky.social•27 days ago

A colleague of mine did get there in the end. It was made a trickier chicken-and-egg problem because we wanted the chicken to pick up part of the tab.

But yes, there’s a lesson in this for the next new towns.

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