Make it Much harder to block projects frivolously. If you stick your nose in to block someone elses project, and lose, you not only need to pay all the court costs, but also the costs of the construction company sitting idle while you argued.
The fact that this is even referencing saving 500 mouse bats when only 2 have been recorded in the UK shows how much credence should be given to this dirge
This is to ecology what Patrick Minford is to economocs
Great analysis, but is it really true that HS2 was forced to build the bat tunnel? I think that's highly debatable. There's plenty of blame to be shared on the HS2 side.
Yes but were they *forced* to build it? Not really. They examined about 15 different options and decided this one was the most appropriate. Nobody forced them to build it.
It's a shame to see there are no proposed changes to the Biodiversity Net Gain requirements for planning applications. All those lovely brownfield sites classed as 'Open Mosaic' which is the highest value land, have no feasible way of replacing the habitat. My architecture practice was quoted £1.8m to buy the credits needed for a 1.2ha site that the police wanted to use for a new custody suite. It completely blows the viability of many sites that politically are the easiest to build on!
The more power there is to block solar farms is to be applauded, and building energy projects on farmland should be a criminal offence.
We need all the farmland we can get and I recognise that farming has been attacked by government and needs considerable reform so that farming is an efficient, effective and concentrates on food production.
The big ptoblem is not the bill itself but that it allows illogical and expensive projects that should never have been approved.
HS2 is one such project, a pure vanity railsystem in a relatively tiny country. Even if railtime is halved between Birmingham and London, the overall time saving for any passenger from source to destination will not be significant.
We could have, instead, a substancial upgrade using current rolling stock which would expand rail capacity at a fraction of the cost, disruption to land owners and compulsory purchases. It does not need the very straight track that HS2 does. High speed rail works in France but is not suited to the U.K.
Discounted electrical bills for those living near prosed pylon routes is just anothe burden our very high electrcity cost. There are no words to describe how lunatic this government's expansion plans are for renewable energy generation. Apart from all their deficiencies that are well documented, the short life of wind genertaors means that they will all need replacing in a very short space of time.
Hello Iain, have you ever thought what Britain would be like if your attitude to development had been in control since 1760 when the Industrial Revolution started. Give a thought to the less than 10 million population of the country then, the poverty of the majority of the working class, the state of medicine, etc. There is a need for additional capacity on the railways and this was identified during the Blair administration. It took over 10 years to get a spade in the ground. I have no truck with the people who approved the BAT tunnel (Not Bat deaths are allowed should have been ignored as stupid). There are large stretches of farmland in set-aside which could easily be used for wind farms or Solar. I lived in the West Country for years and am amazed that much of the barren rock covered landscape is not used for Solar. The proposal to compensate people who live near electricity pylons is just copying what is widely used in Europe. The Southern slopes of the Pyrenees are covered with Solar panels and the previous farmers now enjoy subsidies that enable them to live comfortably. The same is true of Italian farmers who previously eked out a living on the slopes of the Alpes.
Iain, capacity on rail lines is limited by running stopping services and intercity services on the same lines, as there needs to be more gaps between them to stop services catching up to one another. Changing the rolling stock won't help with this. The problem with HS2 is that it costs so much more compared to other countries, partly down to how the planning system for large infrastructure works.
Aarhus is in Denmark, has the Aarhus treaty affected Denmark in the same way?
Make it Much harder to block projects frivolously. If you stick your nose in to block someone elses project, and lose, you not only need to pay all the court costs, but also the costs of the construction company sitting idle while you argued.
Is this a joke?
The fact that this is even referencing saving 500 mouse bats when only 2 have been recorded in the UK shows how much credence should be given to this dirge
This is to ecology what Patrick Minford is to economocs
Great analysis, dead helpful, thank you.
Great analysis, but is it really true that HS2 was forced to build the bat tunnel? I think that's highly debatable. There's plenty of blame to be shared on the HS2 side.
It's not debatable, it's documented and construction almost complete.
Yes but were they *forced* to build it? Not really. They examined about 15 different options and decided this one was the most appropriate. Nobody forced them to build it.
It's a shame to see there are no proposed changes to the Biodiversity Net Gain requirements for planning applications. All those lovely brownfield sites classed as 'Open Mosaic' which is the highest value land, have no feasible way of replacing the habitat. My architecture practice was quoted £1.8m to buy the credits needed for a 1.2ha site that the police wanted to use for a new custody suite. It completely blows the viability of many sites that politically are the easiest to build on!
The more power there is to block solar farms is to be applauded, and building energy projects on farmland should be a criminal offence.
We need all the farmland we can get and I recognise that farming has been attacked by government and needs considerable reform so that farming is an efficient, effective and concentrates on food production.
The big ptoblem is not the bill itself but that it allows illogical and expensive projects that should never have been approved.
HS2 is one such project, a pure vanity railsystem in a relatively tiny country. Even if railtime is halved between Birmingham and London, the overall time saving for any passenger from source to destination will not be significant.
We could have, instead, a substancial upgrade using current rolling stock which would expand rail capacity at a fraction of the cost, disruption to land owners and compulsory purchases. It does not need the very straight track that HS2 does. High speed rail works in France but is not suited to the U.K.
Discounted electrical bills for those living near prosed pylon routes is just anothe burden our very high electrcity cost. There are no words to describe how lunatic this government's expansion plans are for renewable energy generation. Apart from all their deficiencies that are well documented, the short life of wind genertaors means that they will all need replacing in a very short space of time.
Hello Iain, have you ever thought what Britain would be like if your attitude to development had been in control since 1760 when the Industrial Revolution started. Give a thought to the less than 10 million population of the country then, the poverty of the majority of the working class, the state of medicine, etc. There is a need for additional capacity on the railways and this was identified during the Blair administration. It took over 10 years to get a spade in the ground. I have no truck with the people who approved the BAT tunnel (Not Bat deaths are allowed should have been ignored as stupid). There are large stretches of farmland in set-aside which could easily be used for wind farms or Solar. I lived in the West Country for years and am amazed that much of the barren rock covered landscape is not used for Solar. The proposal to compensate people who live near electricity pylons is just copying what is widely used in Europe. The Southern slopes of the Pyrenees are covered with Solar panels and the previous farmers now enjoy subsidies that enable them to live comfortably. The same is true of Italian farmers who previously eked out a living on the slopes of the Alpes.
Iain, capacity on rail lines is limited by running stopping services and intercity services on the same lines, as there needs to be more gaps between them to stop services catching up to one another. Changing the rolling stock won't help with this. The problem with HS2 is that it costs so much more compared to other countries, partly down to how the planning system for large infrastructure works.
>and building energy projects on farmland should be a criminal offence.
The standard way to balance energy and food production is to let the free market decide.
Both food and energy are things we can buy from overseas if need be.