How the private sector can help the Government drive environmental change at pace: Robert Oates
With an objective to build 1.5m homes during this Parliament and accelerate housing delivery with more and faster planning consents, the Government acknowledges that there needs to be a simplified ecology workstream for developers.
This has led to the recent planning reform working paper Development and Nature Recovery which invites responses to opportunities to improve the way we can balance the competing demands of housing delivery and biodiversity.
If the Government is seeking to make changes at pace, then it should first address challenges where the rationale for transformation and benefit to developers is high and the risks to the environment are low.
Such examples are areas like nutrient neutrality, water constraints, human disturbance and ammonia pollution.
Any approach to tackle these key issues will be reliant on up to date data and the capacity within Natural England or the local planning authorities (LPAs) to assess projects effectively and in a timely way.
The previous attempts to boost capacity within LPAs with an initial £4m in 2022 and a further £9.6m in 2023 have not addressed the scale of the issue.
A recent Home Builders Federation report ‘Planning on empty’ determined the deficit of LPA officers in the UK is around 7,500 if the government is to meet its objective.
Yet the Government has promised funding to hire only 300, equating to around four per cent of the number needed – not even one extra officer per LPA.
A better approach would be to harness the private sector to capture data and boost capacity to ensure the new approach could be deployed quickly and at scale.
One way could be to create a new, for-profit education, training and accreditation scheme for private sector ecologists to be recognised as contractors to Natural England or the local authorities.
This would assist in processing applications and ensure they are scrutinised by individuals with the right expertise. Natural England and LPA resources could be retained to audit accredited private sector providers, monitor and enforce conditions of consent by developers, and the cost of the work could be recovered through planning application fees.
This would deliver three benefits; it would be cash generative, it would free up officer time to audit accredited consultants instead of drowning in applications, and it would speed up planning determinations.
The training and accreditation system must be tiered so that consultants can progress from taking responsibility for simple tasks to the most complex.
This is just one example of where the private sector could benefit the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Natural England in a budget and cash positive way. It would lead to a faster and more efficient process as the Statutory Nature Conservation Organisation, but delivered and guided by them with the speed of the private sector and funded by developers rather that the taxpayer.
DEFRA already does this with Responsible Body status in respect to biodiversity net gain conservation covenants, so the precedent is set.
The private sector not only has a crucial role to play – it is probably the only viable solution to operationalise the government’s aspirations.
Robert Oates is chief executive of ecology consultancy Arbtech. The firm conducted assessments to support planning applicants at 818 sites across Yorkshire last year and employs people across the region.