CIEEM recently provided a prompt and informed response on the PM's speech regarding house building and ‘newt counting delays’.
The planning system is multi-faceted, and to pinpoint the failure to build houses on great crested newts (GCNs) is a vast oversimplification of the reality of the entire process. It's really disappointing that the PM decided to specifically draw attention to GCNs when I (and my profession as a whole) work so hard to overcome this perception.
“Newt counting delays in our system are a massive drag on our productivity and prosperity…why do procurement projects take 80% longer here than in Germany? And why does Britain build 2.25 homes per 1000 population compared to 6.8 per 1000 in France?”. “Decade after decade” he said, “we have failed to build enough homes”.
Planning requires collaboration with the right team of people as the right stage of the process, whether this be through the RIBA Plan of Work 2020 for certain projects or via simple verbal advice as to when specific processes are required, in order that planning applications can proceed without delay. Personally, I go on and on about the importance of early engagement and collaboration with ecologists and other technical design team members, because these delays are, broadly, avoidable. Of course, there will be projects coming forward outside of GCN survey season, however initiatives such as district licensing aim to overcome these circumstances and provide alternative solutions, and this is being rolled out on a national basis. We as ecologist aren’t ignorant to this issue, as a profession we too are trying to address them with forward-thinking initiatives.
I do everything I can to find solutions for my clients, and to educate them on the importance of early engagement. As ecologists we’ve been talking about this for years, it’s not a new concept but it’s one that continually surprises (and frustrates) clients when they find themselves on the wrong side of a specific survey period. Most consultancies I know have ecology survey calendars (such as ours here) – the information is there and it’s been the same for quite some time now!
It’s frustrating, that as I’ve noticed a shift over the last few years in client’s awareness of ecological seasonality, and the need to consider ecological feasibility, that this perceived issue has yet again, been unnecessarily brought to the forefront. I truly hope that my clients value my input to their projects and that this view is shared by clients of colleagues in other consultancies. By increasing the understanding of the seasonality of ecological surveys, I hope they are able to forward-plan better to avoid the 'newt counting delays' that are apparently having such a catastrophic impact on the UKs ability to build houses.
