Planning for Nature: fighting to Defend Special Places for Wildlife. By Simon Marsh. London, Pelagic Publishing. Paperback, ISBN 978-1-7827-664-5 240pp £29.99
The author is a Town Planner who used to be Head of Nature Protection at RSPB, so I, as an all-round ecologist, looked up Great Crested Newts (GCNs) in the Index only to find Great Crested Grebes (and nothing on Newts). However, the book is not entirely bird-centric. Some people regard planning issues revolve entirely around GCNs, and they often do. Bats are not indexed either, even though they regulate much of the planning system, like badgers too (not indexed).
But a lot of the big conservation infrastructure battles have been about birds on SPAs, Ramsars, SSSIs and Ancient Woodlands as with nightingales (Lodge Hill, Kent). The little creatures that run the world are not missed out in this book and Buglife-the Invertebrate Conservation Trust are often quoted (they support the book to), and of course some small insects have disrupted and dismissed some developments, such as the Distinguished Jumping Spider (Swanscombe) or the Fonteca’s Seed Fly (Coul Links).
What the author brings to the pages is his experience from two sides of the table, from defending nature, and arbitrating on major construction challenges. He does not represent developers who have different agendas. However, he balances the arguments perfectly by breaking down the main topics discussed into a sort of framework as if a legal Case Study: The scheme, the Ecological case, the Planning Process, the Decision, Lessons (learnt). This reviewer comes from a background as an independent ecologist, who sees LPAs, Developers, Natural England and Ecologists point of view. It is interesting to note how RSPB and Natural England can disagree amongst themselves, and that he reminds us that the birth of Natural England from English Nature was regarded as by some as somewhat watered down. Not a full emasculation.
On the birth of the NPPF (2010) it is fascinating to learn that he and three other experts were essentially put in a room to come up with some sort of guidance. They succeeded, and indeed it was only guidance for nine years until the publication of the Environment Act 2021 he says. Tens of thousands of planning application hang weekly in the balance on the nuances of wording of paragraphs, even single words, in the NPPF. Some developers dismiss the NPPF as non-statutory. All participants in the planning process are acutely involved with outcomes from reading the NPPF.
The author has chosen as his test cases the ones that most people have heard of that fall into the following chapters: airports, seaports, rail, roads, housing, minerals and leisure, coastal planning, wind, tidal and nuclear. What is perhaps so useful for readers is his deep perception of planning issues, which are rapped up in chapters on policy, principles and how to get involved. He is an advocate of ‘good spatial planning’. HS2 is dealt with thoroughly and he admits that he is selective in what stories he tells.
If someone else wrote this book from a different background (developer, landscape architect, ecologist), other cases could have been forensically broken down into how they lost or won, and the book could be a composite of say 600+ pages. I know of no other book that has attempted to this review of key cases, so it is valuable to read his methodical interpretation of events.
As a Town Planner the author has sat through so many inquiries and read so many reports, and he is a stickler for policy. If a LPA has a policy, it should stick to it he maintains. His mantra is tied up in the RSPB’s (2013) 12-point Spatial Policy, quoted as an Appendix (the only Appendix). The book is replete with many chapter references, which are excellent. Incidentally, he is proud that when he was a Town Planner he masterminded the Queen Mother’s Stand at Aintree. He wants you to acknowledge that when you see it. In the same vein (I would say) if an ecologist or landscape architect looked back on their work, the hedgerows put in, and woodlands created, and ponds created, can all be viewed by satellite as testament to their work, in their lifetime too, and from the comfort of an armchair! Of the proposed Oxford-Cambridge expressway his often-cited comments are that people need to be engaged early on in the project. Many of these large projects are lumped into what he calls ‘The Big Idea’. He has a note for the energies of even nature conservation bodies trying to stop these Big Ideas, sometimes they are successful (Dibden Bay, M4 relief road, Seven Tidal Power) and sometimes not (HS2, Forth and Tay Windfarms). Green Belt is kicked into touch as ‘strictly a planning designation, not a landscape or environmental one’. Where two new towns were planned, he cautioned that Milton Keynes took 50 years to build, so take care.
I like his enthusiasm for all planning maps to incorporate all nature conservation areas, so that all developers know where is sensitive to nature of not. As he says ‘planners find it hard to deal with the concept of natural capital’. How right he is! He cautions about collecting signatures, and even if you get a reading in Parliament, beware no action may result. Stick to policies. RSPB he reminds us can usually take on two case a year. Local enthusiasm for nature, such as bird boxes and hedgerow holes in fences, is what he refers to as the bottom of his ‘casework pyramid’ of dealing with planning applications, he says ‘these actions aren’t directly related to planning’.. though he goes on to say the builders Barratts have erected hundreds of swift boxes. I am beginning to think he is rather more a planner than an ‘avid bird birdwatcher’ as he claims. He may well have been a rare, perceptive planner in this regard.
Overall, a great book and a first step to further disclosures from different disciplines. With a protected species, a mechanical digger and habitat destruction on the front cover, it is a balanced review of the current anthropogenic effects on nature by a birdwatcher.
