Nature is no barrier to housing growth, an investigation by MPs has revealed, in direct contradiction to ministers’ claims.
Toby Perkins, Labor chairman of the environmental audit committee, said nature had become a scapegoat and instead of being a barrier to growth, it was necessary for building resilient cities and neighborhoods.
In its report on environmental sustainability and housing growth, the cross-party committee challenged the “lazy narrative”, promoted by UK government ministers, that nature is a barrier or inconvenience to housing creation.
The report says serious skills shortages in ecology, planning and construction are what is stopping the government from realizing its housebuilding ambitions.
Perkins said: “The Government’s target to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament is incredibly ambitious. Achieving it alongside our existing climate and sustainability targets – which are set out in law – will require efforts on a scale never seen before.
“We certainly won’t achieve this by scapegoating nature, claiming it is a ‘barrier’ to housing provision. We are clear in our report: a healthy environment is essential to building resilient cities. It must not be sidelined..»
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Experts say the Planning and Infrastructure Bill – in its final stages before being passed – overrides environmental legislation to allow developers to avoid the need for on-site surveys and mitigation of any environmental damage by paying into a central nature recovery fund for improvements elsewhere.
Environmentalists, environmental groups and some lawmakers fought for changes to the bill to keep protections for wildlife and rare habitats unchanged. But Housing Secretary Steve Reed called on MPs to reject the changes when they vote in the House of Commons on the bill this week.
The committee said it was concerned that the legislation, as written, would mean the government would miss its legally defined target of halting nature’s decline by 2030 and reversing it by 2042.
The report reveals that local planning authorities were seriously under-resourced in green skills. He heard evidence that Natural England staff were being “stretched to the limit”, and that the skills needed to implement the ecological aspects of planning reforms “simply do not exist at the scale, quality or capacity needed”.
It comes as Natural England will play a major role in planning under the Government’s changes. The body will oversee the National Nature Restoration Fund, which will be funded by developers and allow builders to bypass environmental obligations on a particular site – even if it is a landscape protected for its wildlife.
Critics of the bill have questioned the conflict of interest in giving Natural England new funding from developers while expecting the body to regulate their actions.
