You can’t ‘zone’ wildlife and nature... just ask the bears

THE Government is consulting on major changes to the planning system. Deciding where to build what is a fraught process which cannot please everybody.

Developers say that the whole process is too long, there is too much uncertainty and the costs are too high. Others say that the delays are as much down to the developers as the system. Land is bought and ‘banked’, remaining undeveloped for years, planning applications often take insufficient account of community needs and infrastructure, or have inadequate environmental assessments.

The two sides become polarised – ‘greedy’ developers against NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard) or, worse still, BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody).

The new proposals put much more weight on the strategic elements of planning. Local plans, the backbone of the system against which individual planning applications are tested, will have to divide land into three zones: Growth Areas within which many developments will automatically receive approval; Renewal Areas where some development will be permitted, including ‘‘gentle densification’’ whatever that means; and Protected Areas where ‘‘development will be restricted’’, a very imprecise term.

Zoning is not a new concept. In the 1980s we had Enterprise Zones, Merry Hill in Dudley being one of the main ones. They are very blunt instruments and are entirely inappropriate for protecting nature and the network of habitats we need in our urban areas. Rivers, woodlands and grasslands are where they are, they do not fit artificial boundaries. Their integrity, quality and accessibility all need to be protected and enhanced wherever they are.

I recall being shown zoning in practice on the outskirts of Seattle. My ranger companion pointed out where the local nature preserve abutted new housing.

“This,” he said, “is where the bears are supposed to roam, not over there. Only trouble is we haven’t yet found a way to explain that to the bears.”

This is what I mean by saying our green spaces are where they are; woe betide any that fall within a Growth Area. Nicki Williams, of The Wildlife Trusts, says: “The simplification proposed brings the risk of creating a disconnected landscape in which nature continues to decline because it does not slot into neat little boxes.”

If there are imperatives for development, there are equally imperatives for sustaining and improving nature within local environments.

Leaving the EU means losing many legal protections. A reformed planning system needs to replace these, not lose them by default.

Peter Shirley is a West Midlands-based conservationist