The government plans to unveil sweeping changes this week to the national planning policy framework, the document which sets out national priorities for building, after a consultation.
I’m really looking forward to the yimby charter, I’ve got to say. We’re going to build so much stuff, it’s going to be amazing.
‘Labour seem to be saying that Angela is best and local people can be ignored.’
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Yes, because in a country where wildlife is declining rapidly, a country that has one of the lowest biodiversity levels in the world, the solution is to allow developers to just build over the remaining habitats whilst making vauge hand-waving promises about protection.
I get the need to build more, but unless the government is going to take biodiversity loss seriously, you’re just destroying more of what we have the most little of.
The government is taking biodiversity seriously by banning bee-killing pesticides, encouraging a shift to regenerative farming and through their commitment to green energy generally. They’ve also promised to make considerations around biodiversity part of the new planning policy.
What they have to stop is the use of biodiversity as a mere excuse for nimbyism. And, yes, this will entail building on some ‘green’ land. However, just because there’s a bit of grass on something doesn’t necessarily make it particularly biodiverse. We’ll do far more for biodiversity by making protected green land truly biodiverse (rather than vast areas of near-dead monocultures, which is what all too much ‘green space’ in the UK actually is) while building good homes on some of the low-quality green space - which is the plan.