Evans Banks Planning Ltd’s Post

"We can’t have a situation where a newt is more protected than people who desperately need housing." Wow. Just when I think there's some progress being made, a prominent politician trots out this sort of nonsense. Contrary to what our Deputy PM has been told, newts are not prioritised over building affordable homes. There are plenty of examples of projects being poorly planned and councils are too poorly resourced to make solid decisions about development that affects nature and people. But it's never, in my experience, been a case that newts, bats or any other protected species actually held up essential development. Basic program management will get your housing development application in on on time, with your ecology surveys in hand. Decent training and funding of councils will mean more effective decision making for communities. This sort of "nature Vs people" approach has got to go out of our thinking now. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. The Green Finance Institute links a 12% loss of GDP to biodiversity decline. Nature supports flood alleviation, carbon storage, soil health and helps improve air quality - all ways we can secure better health outcomes and less burden on the NHS. Not to mention better soils for producing our food, and fewer devastating floods in our homes. Quite frankly, anyone who can't see that restoring nature will create a better environment for people to live in has no business talking about the subject. The DPM apparently thinks the balance between protecting nature and people is wrong. She's right - neither are well served by this. Nature's needs ARE people's needs! But nope, let's not join those dots and invest in nature. Let's blame the need to protect it for the housing shortages we see... let's ignore the lack of support for councils, the lack of will from government or the housing industry to actually provide genuinely affordable homes where everyone has access to nature, and blame some newts.

"We can’t have a situation where a newt is more protected than people who desperately need housing." Wow. Just when I think there's some progress being made, a prominent politician trots out this sort of nonsense. Contrary to what our Deputy PM has been told, newts are not prioritised over building affordable homes. There are plenty of examples of projects being poorly planned and councils are too poorly resourced to make solid decisions about development that affects nature and people. But it's never, in my experience, been a case that newts, bats or any other protected species actually held up essential development. Basic program management will get your housing development application in on on time, with your ecology surveys in hand. Decent training and funding of councils will mean more effective decision making for communities. This sort of "nature Vs people" approach has got to go out of our thinking now. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. The Green Finance Institute links a 12% loss of GDP to biodiversity decline. Nature supports flood alleviation, carbon storage, soil health and helps improve air quality - all ways we can secure better health outcomes and less burden on the NHS. Not to mention better soils for producing our food, and fewer devastating floods in our homes. Quite frankly, anyone who can't see that restoring nature will create a better environment for people to live in has no business talking about the subject. The DPM apparently thinks the balance between protecting nature and people is wrong. She's right - neither are well served by this. Nature's needs ARE people's needs! But nope, let's not join those dots and invest in nature. Let's blame the need to protect it for the housing shortages we see... let's ignore the lack of support for councils, the lack of will from government or the housing industry to actually provide genuinely affordable homes where everyone has access to nature, and blame some newts.

Natural England have just announced that their GCN District Level Licensing (DLL) Scheme will be impacted by a temporary reduced offer in some Scheme Areas. In a number of areas, apparently demand has begun to outstrip supply which has reduced their pond banks, and as they state in an evolving landscape of nature-based solutions and planning reform, pond creation is becoming more challenging. Apparently they are currently continuing to deliver some ponds across all DLL Scheme areas and are working hard to find solutions to increase their pond banks, but until this situation is resolved, in some areas, they have temporarily reduced the DLL Scheme offer to developers to avoid running out of ponds.  They are currently looking at measures to increase DLL Scheme pond supply including: Working closely with existing Habitat Delivery Partners to support and facilitate increased awareness amongst landowners of DLL as a tool for nature recovery by other organisations, onboarding more habitat delivery partners, engaging with Defra and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to investigate opportunities through planning reforms to simplify the pond creation process, enabling them to scale up pond delivery. In my view it looks like the supply of new sites for pond creation / enhancement to underpin the GCN DLL Scheme is drying up!!! possibly as landowners consider other potentially more financially lucrative schemes (BNG habitat creation?). Natural England state that they will provide monthly updates through their newsletter to clearly state the DLL Scheme areas where pond supply is running low and where the DLL offer is reduced. In DLL Scheme areas where there is uncertainty over pond supply, they advise that consultant ecologists may wish to consider undertaking GCN surveys to ensure that they have sufficient data to inform a conventional GCN mitigation licence application if DLL is or becomes unavailable!. Natural England will also provide an outlook based on DLL Scheme specific factors, and report when / if pond supply has been restored. As of December 2024 Scheme areas where the DLL offer is temporarily reduced are:  Norfolk: DLL is available for developments needing 1 or fewer compensation ponds  Leicestershire: DLL is available for developments needing 1 or fewer compensation ponds  North-East Yorkshire: DLL is available for developments needing 3 or fewer compensation ponds  North Somerset: DLL is available for developments needing 1 or fewer compensation ponds  Somerset: DLL is available for developments needing 1 or fewer compensation ponds.  Interesting times indeed.