Guest Blog: Notes from the frontline – a Lincolnshire campaigner asks, “How can we stop the Government’s War on Our Countryside?”

Author: Andrew Jenkins - a former Corporate Sustainable Development Specialist

Ed Milliband’s actions to approve three massive solar factories (Mallard Pass and Gate Burton in Lincolnshire and Sunnica in Suffolk) in the first week of his tenure as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has highlighted the broken nature of our planning system. His decision just a few days after he took office demonstrated that he had not read the evidence placed before him and, without counter evidence, disregarded concerns about biodiversity, productive agricultural land loss, human rights issues and harms to community.

This makes a mockery of the promise made by Keir Starmer on his election as Prime Minister to serve the country, restore trust in politics, provide “stability and moderation” and “tread more lightly on your lives”.

​It opens the floodgates to unsustainable, opportunistic developments that will ruinate and scar the UK.

Developers will now rush to propose out of scale developments such as pylon routes, solar and wind factories in rural areas knowing that if they achieve NSIP[1] scale they can be nodded through by an idealistic Minister who cannot be bothered to study the evidence.
At the same time our already broken planning system is being weakened still further whilst the media are obsessed with bashing the current system and demonising so called “Nimbyism”
In an era when pressure on land use is increasing rapidly and the need to combat climate change and loss of nature is greater than ever before reform is needed to focus and future proof planning.

What should this look like?

Firstly, a strategic approach to land use is required to prevent developers dictating how and where infrastructure and housing is located.  A good start would be for the new government to publish a Land Use Framework, which was started under the last one.
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The strategy must take account of the principles of Sustainable Development. This is defined by the UN as “development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.[2]"

The sustainable approach to planning and infrastructure would include.

• Ensuring that decisions are made for long term sustainability not short-term profit or ideological expediency
• Considering the effect on the whole system and impact on nature and climate change, including unintended consequences such as the loss of agriculture causing the need to import more food and subsequent increase of carbon emissions
• Preventing the depletion of natural or physical resources, so that they will remain available for the long term
• Protecting and restore terrestrial ecosystems, landscape and heritage, sustainably manage forests, halt and reverse land degradation and stop biodiversity loss.
• Ensuring communities are included in decision-making and are not adversely impacted by decisions made
• Respecting and upholding individual human rights in developments including their supply chains.
• Holding developers to account on their promises such as the proportion of affordable housing proposed.

​Just as important is the need to recognise that our landscapes are an asset for all.
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It is untrue that people worried about the assault on our countryside are just a lot of “Nimbys[3]”. A survey carried out by Future Countryside in 2023[4] found 93% of people believe that the British countryside should be regarded as part of this country’s “national heritage” and 54% do not think that the countryside has been taken seriously enough by the government. These people are not just concerned with “My Back Yard” they are concerned with “Great Britain’s back yard.”

To reform the current inadequate planning system and counter the threat from profit driven developers and an ideologically led Government local concerns and campaigns must become stronger by adopting a nationally co-ordinated approach. Only by working together can we stop the mindless unsustainable destruction and create a better environment for all.
 
Andrew Jenkins
Contact Andrew via [email protected]
(Andrew is a former Corporate Sustainable Development Specialist)

[1] NSIP - Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects ​
​[2] United Nation Sustainable Development Goals​
[3] Nimby – Not in my Back yard; person concerned only with issues affecting them personally.
[4] Survey for the Future Countryside Conference 2023