The Derby City Council planning committee voted yesterday evening by a very narrow margin to approve its own application to destroy the Sanctuary Local Nature Reserve – a proposal that Chris Packham, rightly, described as a ‘vile act of wanton vandalism’.
The voting was:
Absent – 1 Labour councillor
In favour – 5 Labour and 1 LibDem
Against – 4 Conservative and 1 Lib Dem
Yes, I guess had the Conservatives been in the majority then the votes might all have switched around with the same result.
I’d like to congratulate the great campaign that has been fought by a consortium of people and organisations to oppose this destruction. I wonder whether there is anything more that can be done.
And I’d like to thank readers of this blog who responded to the call and lodged objections to this damaging proposal too.
I’m feeling low and disappointed by this news – and I have never visited the site and don’t live near Derby. But I also feel a little bit of pride in having helped, in a very small way, to highlight the issue and mobilise objections. I didn’t sit around doing nothing and saying something should be done about it – I did something, however small, about it. And so did those of you who objected (and, actually, any of you who wrote in support of this proposal too).
But we didn’t win – you might say. Correct – but we did our best and that is far better than doing nothing.
Imagine that we could have mobilised another 1000 objectors – might that have nudged one more councillor to vote against? It might have done mightn’t it? Let’s do that next time. Social media, coupled with freedom of speech, allow individuals to campaign for their beliefs in a much more effective way than ever before.
But I do feel low. It seems so wrong that a nature reserve which politicians lauded at its inception should be destroyed by a decision made by those same political parties a few years later. It symbolises the contempt with which our society too often regards nature.
And I am saddened that it was Labour votes which carried this decison (well – we know we can’t count on LibDems for much). I don’t have a vote in Derby but I do have a vote (several, which have to be ranked, I think) in the East Midlands constituency in the Euro elections in May. My enthusiasm for using those votes to elect Labour MEPs is now reduced. I’ll come back to that nearer the time, and in my May column in Birdwatch magazine, so watch this space (and that one).
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I honestly believe, Mark that we have 3 Tory parties in England. Labour are just as “good” at wrecking the environment as the other 2 parties. I have voted Labour, Liberal/Libdem and Green at various times in my adult life and have come to the conclusion that there is little point in believing in Labour anymore. The only alternative, indeed the only solution it seems to me is for a green socialist government and I doubt if the electorate will ever make that happen. As for me, I see no point in casting a vote any direction other than Green for all the good it will do. Democracy has reached a sad state where none of the major parties have an ideology, bar that of pleasing the City of London but I guess we get the governments we deserve – it’s just a pity that the birds and the bees don’t get a say!
Peter – I can sympathise with your views. But surely it’s four: Lab, Con, Lib and UKIP?
Good point – I’d forgotten about them! A bit of an oversight. I suppose at least they have an ideology, however unpleasant!
Peter – and their ideology is pulling others towards it as a response, I’m afraid.
Maybe we don’t just get the governments we deserve then, Mark but the governments we want. If the electorate want a UKIP government then there really is no hope! Evolution has created the most complicated system in the universe – the human brain. How can evolution have got it so wrong?!
Martin Harper likes them enough to provide a link to them on his blog (2 Feb)
filbert – well, I’ve linked to them in the past too – and probably will in the future. May not indicate approval!
I agree its been a great campaign so why stop there. Can the campaigners go any further- take legal action against the council?
All possible avenues are being explored Peter and advice taken too….
Meanwhile we are hearing that plans are being drawn up to get bulldozers on site quickly…..but can they do that before the LNR is de-declared? Can we invoke an injunction? We are trying to find out….
Nick
Good luck Nick. Look forward to hearing about it. Can they move in so quickly- any reptile relocation, bird/ bat box relocation, any pre-development mitigation measures etc ? will they get in there before the breeding season starts? (will be early if this mild weather keeps up).
Nick et al.,
There is an interesting blog written by Matt Shardlow (Buglife) which has some relevance (and resonance) to the outcome at The Sanctuary – read it here: http://www.buglife.org.uk/blog/matt-shardlow-ceo/defending-wildlife-and-human-liberties
I guess many readers will have missed the consultation (me included) but the background and links, including the Government’s response that Matt refers to can be read here: https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/judicial-review and additionally, here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-planning-court-gets-go-ahead-to-support-uk-growth
R.
Thanks for those links Richard. Very interesting.
Thanks very much for sharing those links, Richard. I hope Mark will help draw attention to both. The present government seems to be developing a habit for blaming wildlife/environmental issues for being a drag on development, whilst presenting little, if any, real evidence in justification.
The take home messages of last year’s NGO-produced State of Nature report, Link’s Nature Check and Defra’s own biodiversity indicators, don’t suggest that wildlife is being put ahead of development or financial returns from land use. Judicial review is pretty much a last gasp affair in the UK (and it’ll be interesting to what extent this moves further to the European Court of Justice).
Review by the Local Government Ombudsman would be a possibility if there has been maladministration in the Sanctuary case, but even if the Authority could be shown to have been at fault, the mechanism moves so slowly that the development would be completed long before the Ombudsman reported, pointed out the body’s mistakes and issued a not very hefty fine as a token slap on the wrist (none of which the offending authority has to accept). The main benefit (apart from putting the Council under the spotlight and being a lot cheaper than JR is that it might result in a change of procedures for the future).
As yet Government has to suggest the introduction of a Biodiversity & Ecosystems Ombudsman, either to keep those obstructive wildlife NGOs on the straight and narrow or to review how the policies and practices of public bodies are managing to meet the biodiversity duty and ensure that it has a positive effect.
In the present case, under the NPPF and in support of the Biodiversity 2020 targets, local planning authorities should be seeking to ensure net gain for biodiversity through ‘sustainable’ development. Whatever the rights and wrongs, that clearly wasn’t possible to achieve in this individual case, although it is surprising that the LNR status was dealt with so lightly. The point – finally – is that the Council appears to have given itself some obligation to make good on that net deficit. Perhaps it did so through suitable Section 106 agreements or it already has a biodiversity element within its Community Infrastructure Levy arrangements. If not, perhaps there is a case to be answered in front of the Ombudsman on its wider handling of biodiversity issues.
Whilst I’d still rather NGOs and governments would come together to work out an effective way of delivering conservation in the UK at local to national level, I think that there is also a strong case for developing an online resource base/wiki to which will provide a catalogue of cases where local people successfully and unsuccessfully fought to retain a local wildlife site or influenced proposals – and how – so that others can learn from the examples, and have a better chance next time round. Much better than judicial review. (There’s a river restoration example here: http://riverwiki.restorerivers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ) . Perhaps Link might set up such a wiki site – under the name of Sanctuary, perhaps.
The saddest part is that the novelty of cycling will pass relatively quickly, the council will fail to maintain the track and the loss will have been for pretty much nothing !