This is an interesting report in a local newsletter. I feel that, whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case, this is a significant issue. Carrying out weak environmental assessments for developers is a gravy train.
[registration_form]Professional? Or professional foul?
It’s the New Oldest Profession
I’ve always been very sceptical perhaps cynical about these ecological surveys, thinking that if the appraisal doesn’t suit the developer those doing the survey won’t get work from them again and of course that word will go round other developers. This seems a good case in point.
And if all else fails, a japanese knotweed infestation will be found. You know, eventually, which I’m sure totally didn’t happen when someone threw a few dozen roots of the stuff into the area at midnight one night.
I remember when this used to happen with a lot of old mills that were listed buildings, requests for developments would go round, be denied, and then suddenly there’d be a mysterious fire and they’d need to be pulled down. The Japanese Knotweed infestation is just the new version of the mysterious fire, adapted for an ecological niche rather than an architectural one.
Sadly, this is rife in my industry. Sometimes it is due to rank incompetence at all levels. Sometimes it is just a decision to send out into the field people who simply don’t have the skills or experience. And yes, sometimes it is less forgiveable influences at work.
Of particular relevance to this case, it is true to say that botany is grossly undervalued as a skill when compared with (e.g.) having a licence to survey for great crested newts. Yet botany is the root of all good and thorough ecological site assessments – something I still try to impress on all my staff. No matter who your client, it should be a given that you play with a straight bat, and in the first instance this means doing the best you can to document what the baseline is at the outset. But I know that we are the exception rather than the rule on this. I can name countless examples where we’ve picked up others’ ecological survey work and had a good laugh about it, albeit it is sometimes no laughing matter. A Phase 1 survey by a (very) big player in the consultancy world for a brownfield site of near SSSI quality that dismissed it all as improved grassland. A survey of a floodplain meadow grassland that concluded it wasn’t MG4 on the basis of data that excluded grasses. I could go on…
I would be interested to hear how this complaint to CIEEM is handled, and the results of other such complaints. Has CIEEM ever struck off any of its members for writing an inadequate or misleading assessment? If so, what do they consider to be sufficient grounds for doing that? I have read several reports by environmental consultants that I thought were deliberately misleading in the direction the developer wanted, but the same companies were back doing the same thing soon after.
Hi
As a general point, and no reflection on the specifics as I have not read the report, nor understand the context or background, so the following is not a narrative or comment on the ecology report referred to, and nor should it be construed as such, I agree that poor or sub-standard ecology reporting should be called out.
The Chartered Institute for Ecology & Environmental Management (CIEEM) provides some background here: https://cieem.net/i-need/about-our-members/ and all initial ecology survey work should follow this guidance, with any deviation coherently explained with justification: https://cieem.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Guidelines-for-Preliminary-Ecological-Appraisal-Jan2018-1.pdf. Follow-up surveys such as for bats, have their own bespoke guidance.
If anyone considers that a report falls short of the above guidance, and the ecologist(s) involved are members of CIEEM, there is a complaints procedure.
For the substantial majority of instances, ecologists will work diligently and professionally, supporting their clients (whoever they may be) and working within the spirit, ethics and meaning of the law and policies relevant to the location.
The specific proposal may not be to a local community’s liking and there is of course a route to submit a meaningful objection: and this planning blog: http://planninglawblog.blogspot.com/p/how-to-object.html provides a useful guide. Simply writing, “I object to ‘x development'” won’t cut it – it needs to cite specific meaningful reasons such as surveys failed to follow ‘y’ guidance (and here is the evidence). Of course, there is a reliance on the objector having an understanding of the gap between what was undertaken and the shortfalls/ omissions – but if you consider (or have evidence) that certain survey work was not undertaken; or one visit was completed, when the guidance says there should have been three, then this carries weight. It is also worth discussing your concerns with the named planning officer who is dealing with the case – as by bringing this to the attention of them, they can potentially go back to the developer’s agent and seek clarification.
Hope the above is of interest?
Richard
In my career, I’ve seen more poor ecological assessments than good ones. It does worry me enormously that planning authorities often rely upon them. This highlights the need for good, independent ecological surveys – they should be carried out by or for a public body rather than a developer with vested interests.
I haven’t necessarily seen a random sample of reports written by environmental consultants, but I’ve seen quite a few. The majority of them were deliberately misleading in ways that favoured the developer; some outrageously so. Hence, I do not agree with Richard Wilson that these consultants generally work diligently and professionally within the spirit, ethics and meaning of the law and policies relevant to the location. In many cases, when conservation NGOs with enough resources to employ their own scientists challenge these assessments, the wheels tend to fall off them in ways that most scientists would take to heart and mend their ways in their future efforts. I haven’t seen much evidence of that learning process myself. I suspect that is because the people involved know very well that there is not much risk of being struck off from their professional body. I might be quite wrong about this, in which case, I look forward to seeing the list of those struck off, if anyone can provide it.
It always depresses me when I discover an ecology survey of an area rich in warblers and other songbirds, plus butterflies and moths, has been carried out in January or February.
The trouble is few planning officers or planning committee members are naturalists, so they can easily have the wool pulled over their eyes by an ecologist, especially one with a lot of initials after their names.
Nine times out of 10, the eco-report concludes: “The proposed development will have a negligible impact on biodiversity.”
CIEEM’s journal ‘In Practice’ usually has a section detailing disciplinary cases . This summarises the results of complaints about breaches of CIEEM’s codes. These do not normally involve ‘striking off’ .
Signed up members of CIEEM are meant to operate according to its codes, and to fulfil the standards set out in BS 42020- the biodiversity standard. These are actually quite clear about the requirements of quality and reporting and transparency that are expected of professionals.
As readers with any degree of scientific rigour will be aware, any potential issues in surveys should be clearly recognised, and limitations stated, reasons why these are/are not significant (and demonstrably so), and problems evaluated and decisions and data open for scrutiny. Some would call that a component of the scientific method. On that basis, the example of January visits described by James for most flora come, or should come, with large clanging caveat emptor signs. To infer anything for warblers would make that beyond credibility. Yet, I had both of these too in a case I was asked to review.
Working as an expert witness one runs into a large volume of suspect data. Normally it is wrong survey methods, non-compliance with stated standard methods, failure to back up claims, and stretching data beyond any credibility. I have seen cases where the same ecologist was several times doing two things at once 0.5km apart, where staff were walking through viewsheds at the same time as they were being scanned by others for birds- putting up flocks in the process, where the viewpoints for bird surveys were at the bottom of a slope so that most of the claimed viewshed was invisible, and where cold nights of 2 degrees C were stated as not affecting bat surveys in the slightest. The missing viewpoint site also had average nights 26.4 hours long according to the bat data and bat calculations. All would have been accepted unopposed by the Council had a group of locals not taken exception to the ‘quality’ of the data and decided to ask an independent third party to scan an objective eye over the developer’s case. The developer lost.
It takes a lot of time to work through 300+ pages of ecological bits of an EIS/ EIA, and work through and tease out the detail behind the myriad of claims and shaky data. Most developers know that takes time and money, normally too much for most to oppose, and councils also know that there is a risk of costs against them if they support a case and lose.
Local Authorities largely rely on developer data because they lack staff numbers, skills, resources and the time frame to deal with things properly. Who says? The House of Lords looked at this in 2018 and found a parlous state of under resourced/ under qualified Local Authorities: c10% of planners had any ecological qualification, and this was falling as numbers plummeted in cutbacks. A 2016 survey of the sorts of data that comes across the desk of Local Authority Ecologists (ALGE 2016: ecological reports are they fit for purpose?) showed that the majority of reports have inadequate surveys, fail to describe methods and basically ignore limitations that affect data.
So, should we be surprised that there are cases like that described in Mark’s blog? No. Should this be acceptable? No. Recent papers in CIEEM’s journal are beginning to query this, but there is a way to go.