As someone who has been involved with planning restrictions the government are trying to find a new way to Fastrack decisions, all my local planners are up to their eyeballs. however for me as a local resident in a countryside location the fear is here that the planning gates are going to be blown wide open, its very concerning that green belts are to be 'reviewed' and as you say pay as you play for developers, with everything in this modern day if the return out ways the cost to buy your way then they absolutely will. The other major concern is i am seeing constant, small but ongoing and detrimental destruction of natural spaces, its a hedgerow here, field there, villages and towns expanding into green areas not only losing their identity but putting pressure of local services and eroding the little space our nature has left, we should remember our 'green and pleasant land' is in the bottom 10 probably less now in Europe for biodiversity and in the bottom 5 for tree cover, the farmers fields are ecologically dead so our green and pretty land isn't so green and pretty. Climate change and a catastrophic biodiversity decline must be halted and restored, my fear is poor planning decisions rather than strategic thinking on this will lead to sadly more destruction.
@@slashingbison2503 thanks for the long and detailed reply. We see both sides as you can imagine. From a homeowner and small scale development perspective the current system is seriously problematic. Homeowners can find themselves spending 5k in protected species survey fees when the mitigation is a 20.00 bat box. That can’t be right. At the other end, these proposals open the door for ‘gaming the system’ and there will be a systematic destruction of small parcels of habitat. I’m not a fan of District Level Licensing as developers are essentially paying to destroy species. A far better reform would be to scrap BNG and just put a proportional fee on every application to go toward large scale conservation projects. No ecologist entered this sector to fight over 5m2 of wildflower meadow being installed next to the bin store and your local new Lidl.
As someone who has been involved with planning restrictions the government are trying to find a new way to Fastrack decisions, all my local planners are up to their eyeballs. however for me as a local resident in a countryside location the fear is here that the planning gates are going to be blown wide open, its very concerning that green belts are to be 'reviewed' and as you say pay as you play for developers, with everything in this modern day if the return out ways the cost to buy your way then they absolutely will.
The other major concern is i am seeing constant, small but ongoing and detrimental destruction of natural spaces, its a hedgerow here, field there, villages and towns expanding into green areas not only losing their identity but putting pressure of local services and eroding the little space our nature has left, we should remember our 'green and pleasant land' is in the bottom 10 probably less now in Europe for biodiversity and in the bottom 5 for tree cover, the farmers fields are ecologically dead so our green and pretty land isn't so green and pretty.
Climate change and a catastrophic biodiversity decline must be halted and restored, my fear is poor planning decisions rather than strategic thinking on this will lead to sadly more destruction.
@@slashingbison2503 thanks for the long and detailed reply. We see both sides as you can imagine. From a homeowner and small scale development perspective the current system is seriously problematic. Homeowners can find themselves spending 5k in protected species survey fees when the mitigation is a 20.00 bat box. That can’t be right.
At the other end, these proposals open the door for ‘gaming the system’ and there will be a systematic destruction of small parcels of habitat.
I’m not a fan of District Level Licensing as developers are essentially paying to destroy species.
A far better reform would be to scrap BNG and just put a proportional fee on every application to go toward large scale conservation projects.
No ecologist entered this sector to fight over 5m2 of wildflower meadow being installed next to the bin store and your local new Lidl.