Farmers currently get a subsidy of £25/m for planting hedgerows. If we assume that is the rough cost you would be looking at nearly 5000km of hedging for £120m
Sam, I say this as a local government ecologist: you should really spend some time talking to us rather than blindly slinging mud at us. The perception you have of us is very strange & alienating ecologists is a big part of why the PI Bill has had such a bumpy road to Royal Assent and why the first EDPs will probably be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.
As soon as I talk to any of my colleagues anywhere in the country, we all share many of your concerns about 80,000 page EIAs, bat tunnels and a Byzantine planning system. However, as soon as the topic of reforming/updating the planning system is broached, we are very condescendingly viewed as the cause of the problem. We are not frustrated because we are opposed to planning reforms, we are frustrated because we weren't consulted on them. We can see the capacity issues within Natural England, the inherent weakness of the overall improvement test and the 30 years of evidence that nature credit markets succeed or fail on whether enforcement/monitoring happens. These are genuine concerns.
I wonder how the 90% consent rates are being achieved in the districts/boroughs I've worked in and contracted for if I and my ilk are "ideologically opposed to development or just not very good".
The "90% consent rates are being achieved in the districts/boroughs I've worked in and contracted for" isn't a reflection of the merits of you and your ilk. Quite the contrary
It's a reflection of the basic filtering effect that occurs in any region with a dysfunctional planning and/or environmental review system, whether that be Britain, or else where.
That filtering effect being that most of the new developments that are built in these regions are projects which developers are confident about beforehand that they can get through the dysfunctional system, and which are constructed by the developers that have deep enough pockets and resources to push their way through the reeds and thickets of the planning system.
This leads to two general outcomes:
1, that only large, well established developers build the vast majority of developments in these regions while smaller, less well established developers are kept out.
Put simply, smaller developers don't have the resources needed to effectively navigate a dysfunctional planning or environment review system. Larger developers do.
Smaller developers don't have the massive pools of money, armies of consultants and lawyers, and the political connections needed to cut their way through the reeds and thickets of the dysfunctional system. Larger developers do.
The result is that in areas like housing construction in Britain, whereas in a previous era, smaller developers built a sizeable percentage of new housing stock, in the present day, most of the new housing stock built is from large property developers.
And this doesn't just apply to housing, it applies to all manner of different types of developments, from retail space to private infrastructure, to public amenities and utilities.
In all of these areas, the dysfunctional system has acted as a barrier to entry for smaller developers, entrenched the power of larger developers, and increased market concentration in all of these industries.
And more relevant to your comment, 2, large numbers of potential developments simply never get proposed at planning boards at all, because the developers who want to pursue these projects simply don't have faith that they can push through the dysfunctional system.
The fact that you have 90% consent rates isn't particularly shocking. It's reflective of what I pointed out earlier, that the developments that are built are projects which developers are confident about beforehand that they can get through the dysfunctional system.
The countless potential developments which developers aren't confident about getting through the dysfunctional system are simply never even proposed. You never see them.
The 90% consent rate isn't of all potential projects which developers may want to pursue. It's a 90% consent rate of the vastly smaller numbers of projects which developers are confident about getting through the dysfunctional thickets.
When you understand it that way, 90% consent for a vastly smaller number of projects, it stops looking so impressive.
The fact that you didn't exactly pick on this and thought your 90% consent rate was impressive, even though it's actually reflective of your practical failings, is exactly why you and your ilk are being sidelined. You can't even recognise the glaring flaws in your view of things and yet you want to be consulted on national policy? Really?
"Some are less kind – hinting the only reasons why ecologists might take a pay cut to work in the public sector is because they’re either ideologically opposed to development or just not very good"
Sorry but who says this? If you're wanting to amend the Habitat Regs you're going to have to come up with a good reasoned argument as to why it's required. Given that the general public isn't exactly up to speed on the detail of a niche issue like this, a big chunk of the people you're going to have to win over are ecologists. So what good does a blanket insult like this achieve? It doesn't further your argument and alienates those who you'll need to win over.
Also, if you think working in the public sector always constitutes a pay cut compared to what ecologists will get in the private sector, then I'd strongly recommend familiarising yourself more with the sector. The generally crappy pay is one reason there's a skills shortage at senior levels - people just decide it isn't worth the effort..
1) we now have enough experience to declare the experiments with carbon offset closed; offset schemes don't really work, and end up being massively fraudulent. And that is in the case of CO2, which is genuinely fungible. Introducing something similar in biodiversity is going to create the equivalent of "cheapest to deliver arbitrage", along with all of the existing show stopping problems of the carbon offset market.
2) there is a danger here of assuming steady state. The bat shed (it isn't a tunnel; I know this is pedantic but it's important because there are lots of unnecessary tunnels on the HS route) cost £120m not because of the bats, but because of aesthetic adjustments to the structure made to achieve compromise with Buckinghamshire County Council. If it hadn't been the bats, Bucks Council would have (and did) found something else to try and block the project with because they fundamentally hated it. I think the mistake is to assume that the limiting factor is the regulations, when it is actually the ingenuity and resources of the NIMBYs.
...but that's still not really right, is it, in terms of actual results for the hedge...in a good year 80% will survive, in a bad drought year 80% may well die (as per across the last few years), and planting costs generally don't cover the costs of maintenance/replacement for the 30 years or so it takes for the hedge to become really a hedge (conservatively, the same as the planting costs)...so at best you'll have 20,000m and at worst only 5,000m. I'll still take the bat tunnel, not least to protect a rare species at the edge of its range (where we can probably learn most about it ecological needs and from where it might best expand its population).
Some really valuable nuanced suggestions there, but they are also subject to weaknesses just as much as the current system I think, and certainly should not be complete replacements....the big issue is 'over-interpretation' - there is no REQUIREMENT for x-thousand pages (and in any case out of those x-thousand how many are really for Habs Regs issues? ...not that many). I'm afraid it looks to me like Catherine Howard isn't that much of an ecologist either, if you folks don't understand, for instance, the value/importance of protecting spaces that haven't yet been colonised by important species (as a parallel, the planning system protects spaces for industrial development, for example, that MIGHT eventually appear).
The point, surely, is who pays for these regulations? It is the tax payers in all cases. Who benefits? The consultants who carry out the work and appear to have no concern for the taxpayers. One example is the Bat Tunnel. It is believed to totally unnecessary because the Bats concerned are not a threatened species. Just ask yourself, who signed off on the construction of a 100 metres of expensive steel bat tunnel in the belief s/he was saving the lives of bats who entire navigation system is so sophisticated that they can detect a moth in total darkness.
As for the Lower Thames Tunnel reports, which cost over £400 million before a spade entered the ground. I pay £4000 a year in income tax on my pension. How many pensioners paid for these reports? Is there no shame in the people who insist on these surveys and insist that someone else pays for their extravagant lifestyles?
“ ChatGPT’s best guess is that £120m could create around 50,000 metres of hedgerow.”
It does not cost £2400/m to plant a hedge. AI is wrong again.
A quick bit of searching found https://www.rjtreesandhedging.co.uk/hedging-calculator-i48 which comes to around £14/m for trees and guards to plant a hedge. Plus watering costs etc but I doubt they amount to £2380/m.
Even more hedges then!
15 miles of hedge costs £120m? Prefer the bat 🦇 tunnel !
Farmers currently get a subsidy of £25/m for planting hedgerows. If we assume that is the rough cost you would be looking at nearly 5000km of hedging for £120m
Sam, I say this as a local government ecologist: you should really spend some time talking to us rather than blindly slinging mud at us. The perception you have of us is very strange & alienating ecologists is a big part of why the PI Bill has had such a bumpy road to Royal Assent and why the first EDPs will probably be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.
As soon as I talk to any of my colleagues anywhere in the country, we all share many of your concerns about 80,000 page EIAs, bat tunnels and a Byzantine planning system. However, as soon as the topic of reforming/updating the planning system is broached, we are very condescendingly viewed as the cause of the problem. We are not frustrated because we are opposed to planning reforms, we are frustrated because we weren't consulted on them. We can see the capacity issues within Natural England, the inherent weakness of the overall improvement test and the 30 years of evidence that nature credit markets succeed or fail on whether enforcement/monitoring happens. These are genuine concerns.
I wonder how the 90% consent rates are being achieved in the districts/boroughs I've worked in and contracted for if I and my ilk are "ideologically opposed to development or just not very good".
The "90% consent rates are being achieved in the districts/boroughs I've worked in and contracted for" isn't a reflection of the merits of you and your ilk. Quite the contrary
It's a reflection of the basic filtering effect that occurs in any region with a dysfunctional planning and/or environmental review system, whether that be Britain, or else where.
That filtering effect being that most of the new developments that are built in these regions are projects which developers are confident about beforehand that they can get through the dysfunctional system, and which are constructed by the developers that have deep enough pockets and resources to push their way through the reeds and thickets of the planning system.
This leads to two general outcomes:
1, that only large, well established developers build the vast majority of developments in these regions while smaller, less well established developers are kept out.
Put simply, smaller developers don't have the resources needed to effectively navigate a dysfunctional planning or environment review system. Larger developers do.
Smaller developers don't have the massive pools of money, armies of consultants and lawyers, and the political connections needed to cut their way through the reeds and thickets of the dysfunctional system. Larger developers do.
The result is that in areas like housing construction in Britain, whereas in a previous era, smaller developers built a sizeable percentage of new housing stock, in the present day, most of the new housing stock built is from large property developers.
And this doesn't just apply to housing, it applies to all manner of different types of developments, from retail space to private infrastructure, to public amenities and utilities.
In all of these areas, the dysfunctional system has acted as a barrier to entry for smaller developers, entrenched the power of larger developers, and increased market concentration in all of these industries.
And more relevant to your comment, 2, large numbers of potential developments simply never get proposed at planning boards at all, because the developers who want to pursue these projects simply don't have faith that they can push through the dysfunctional system.
The fact that you have 90% consent rates isn't particularly shocking. It's reflective of what I pointed out earlier, that the developments that are built are projects which developers are confident about beforehand that they can get through the dysfunctional system.
The countless potential developments which developers aren't confident about getting through the dysfunctional system are simply never even proposed. You never see them.
The 90% consent rate isn't of all potential projects which developers may want to pursue. It's a 90% consent rate of the vastly smaller numbers of projects which developers are confident about getting through the dysfunctional thickets.
When you understand it that way, 90% consent for a vastly smaller number of projects, it stops looking so impressive.
The fact that you didn't exactly pick on this and thought your 90% consent rate was impressive, even though it's actually reflective of your practical failings, is exactly why you and your ilk are being sidelined. You can't even recognise the glaring flaws in your view of things and yet you want to be consulted on national policy? Really?
"Some are less kind – hinting the only reasons why ecologists might take a pay cut to work in the public sector is because they’re either ideologically opposed to development or just not very good"
Sorry but who says this? If you're wanting to amend the Habitat Regs you're going to have to come up with a good reasoned argument as to why it's required. Given that the general public isn't exactly up to speed on the detail of a niche issue like this, a big chunk of the people you're going to have to win over are ecologists. So what good does a blanket insult like this achieve? It doesn't further your argument and alienates those who you'll need to win over.
Also, if you think working in the public sector always constitutes a pay cut compared to what ecologists will get in the private sector, then I'd strongly recommend familiarising yourself more with the sector. The generally crappy pay is one reason there's a skills shortage at senior levels - people just decide it isn't worth the effort..
Why do you continue to avoid bringing up the hierarchy of mitigation?
I think my objections here come in two flavours.
1) we now have enough experience to declare the experiments with carbon offset closed; offset schemes don't really work, and end up being massively fraudulent. And that is in the case of CO2, which is genuinely fungible. Introducing something similar in biodiversity is going to create the equivalent of "cheapest to deliver arbitrage", along with all of the existing show stopping problems of the carbon offset market.
2) there is a danger here of assuming steady state. The bat shed (it isn't a tunnel; I know this is pedantic but it's important because there are lots of unnecessary tunnels on the HS route) cost £120m not because of the bats, but because of aesthetic adjustments to the structure made to achieve compromise with Buckinghamshire County Council. If it hadn't been the bats, Bucks Council would have (and did) found something else to try and block the project with because they fundamentally hated it. I think the mistake is to assume that the limiting factor is the regulations, when it is actually the ingenuity and resources of the NIMBYs.
...but that's still not really right, is it, in terms of actual results for the hedge...in a good year 80% will survive, in a bad drought year 80% may well die (as per across the last few years), and planting costs generally don't cover the costs of maintenance/replacement for the 30 years or so it takes for the hedge to become really a hedge (conservatively, the same as the planting costs)...so at best you'll have 20,000m and at worst only 5,000m. I'll still take the bat tunnel, not least to protect a rare species at the edge of its range (where we can probably learn most about it ecological needs and from where it might best expand its population).
Some really valuable nuanced suggestions there, but they are also subject to weaknesses just as much as the current system I think, and certainly should not be complete replacements....the big issue is 'over-interpretation' - there is no REQUIREMENT for x-thousand pages (and in any case out of those x-thousand how many are really for Habs Regs issues? ...not that many). I'm afraid it looks to me like Catherine Howard isn't that much of an ecologist either, if you folks don't understand, for instance, the value/importance of protecting spaces that haven't yet been colonised by important species (as a parallel, the planning system protects spaces for industrial development, for example, that MIGHT eventually appear).
£25 X 50000 =£1,250,000.00
The point, surely, is who pays for these regulations? It is the tax payers in all cases. Who benefits? The consultants who carry out the work and appear to have no concern for the taxpayers. One example is the Bat Tunnel. It is believed to totally unnecessary because the Bats concerned are not a threatened species. Just ask yourself, who signed off on the construction of a 100 metres of expensive steel bat tunnel in the belief s/he was saving the lives of bats who entire navigation system is so sophisticated that they can detect a moth in total darkness.
As for the Lower Thames Tunnel reports, which cost over £400 million before a spade entered the ground. I pay £4000 a year in income tax on my pension. How many pensioners paid for these reports? Is there no shame in the people who insist on these surveys and insist that someone else pays for their extravagant lifestyles?