Has Sir Keir Starmer picked a struggle with a bat tunnel that – in time – he’ll finally uncover he simply cannot win?
For the final six months, the prime minister has singled out essentially the most hated building website in Britain for criticism – a kilometre-long, £100m shed to guard bats in Buckinghamshire from the excessive pace trains of the longer term.
Sir Keir repeatedly thunders that that is the symbol of a damaged planning system. His chancellor says such issues won’t ever occur once more. However is their joint political sonar superior sufficient to keep away from a collision within the coming months?
Latest weeks have seen a slew of bulletins from Quantity 10 to show they’re taking up the “blockers” with a purpose to get Britain constructing.
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The uncommon Bechstein’s bat. Pic: PA
HS2 will proceed to construct this bat tunnel, resulting from be full in 2027, come what might. A compromise plan – that may see builders pay right into a single government-controlled pot – has left consultants and business figures unimpressed, saying it will not cease one other bat tunnel.
The consultants additionally warn that they wrestle to see how the federal government prevents future absurd and expensive buildings with out repealing nature and habitat legal guidelines we inherited from the EU.
To roll again on these protections would imply not solely warfare with the environmental motion, but in addition breaching our commerce settlement with the EU – all to get Britain constructing once more.
There isn’t any apparent reply, but ministers on Monday insisted one continues to be coming quickly.
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The bat tunnel is because of be accomplished in 2027
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The prime minister says the tunnel is an emblem of a damaged planning system
By scrambling by bushes and trudging by muddy public footpaths, we have been ready entry open area shut sufficient to the construction, to movie the positioning intimately with a drone with out crossing into HS2 land – and it makes fairly the spectacle.
Three miles north west of Aylesbury, chopping by the countryside like a scar and wedged between two industrial waste incinerators, we present from the sky the roofless skeleton of the kilometre-long shed which is able to insulate railway tracks being inbuilt Buckinghamshire – and shield the bats.
The purpose is to cease a uncommon breed often known as the Bechstein, which lives in an historical woodland adjoining to the route, from hitting future excessive pace trains after they run from London to Birmingham.
Your complete construction exists in order that HS2 can adjust to “The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017” – a set of laws which protects uncommon species, derives from the EU Habitats Directive and stays in pressure within the UK to this present day regardless of Brexit.
Though usually wrongly summarised as that means “no bat death is acceptable”, regulator Pure England did advise HS2 that to adjust to this regulation, the corporate would wish to keep up the “favourable conservation status” for the 300 bats as soon as building was full. No straightforward feat.
HS2 executives mulled digging a tunnel, noise-based deterrents and rerouting the road, which might decelerate the Excessive Velocity trains and show too costly. In addition they checked out obstacles alongside the railway or a looser netting construction over the railway – however none of those would have been assured to ship the usual of safety required by regulation.
However their engineers and consultants suggested the most affordable, legally most secure route was the shed being constructed right now. And after 4 years of conferences with the native council, building started and continues to this present day.
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Undated handout artist’s impression issued by HS2 of the Sheephouse Wooden bat safety construction. Pic: PA
“We need to find a way to reduce the cost of infrastructure in this country. Yes, protecting our wildlife too. But if we don’t do that, we won’t be able to build and we won’t be able to make this country grow again, which is something that’s been lacking for so long,” he instructed me.
However can they cease this in future? The federal government insists the solutions will are available in as-yet-unpublished future planning laws and yesterday authorities doubled down on its ambition.
“Spending vast sums to build a ‘bat tunnel’ is ludicrous,” mentioned a spokesman.
“For too long, regulations have held up the building of homes and infrastructure, blocking economic growth and doing little for nature. That is why we are introducing new planning reforms and a nature restoration fund to unblock the building of homes and infrastructure and improve outcomes for our natural world. This will deliver a win-win for the economy and nature.”
However a nature restoration fund might not present all of the solutions, in response to consultants.
Underneath this plan, the federal government is proposing that builders who probably fall foul of habitat and nature guidelines give cash to a pot to fund supply of wider strategic tasks that assist nature, moderately than attempting to compensate for every potential breach of the habitat laws.
Attorneys assume that the concept of a fund is smart for teams of tasks affecting precisely the identical species and habitat, however the majority of issues come up the place a single challenge creates its personal points – as is the case of HS2 and the bat tunnel.
“The concept of pooling funds for a grand compensation project which ticks the habitats regulations box for a number of projects onshore therefore seems challenging,” wrote Catherine Howard from regulation agency Herbert Smith Freehills.
“It is certainly going to take a lot of time, effort and cost for the government or regulators to think through what sort of onshore strategic compensation might need to be put in place, and then to deliver it.
“Can choices be made within the meantime reliant on the promise that such compensation will come ahead?”.
But if there isn’t a compromise option which appeals to ministers, repealing or downgrading habitat and nature rules is the only option.
This, however, would be likely to put the UK in breach of a number of international treaties, including the Trade and Cooperation Agreement entered into by the UK and the European Union in April 2021 to govern post Brexit relations and maintain a “degree enjoying area”.
Pro-growth pressure group Britain Remade says while promises of stopping future bat tunnels should be applauded, “there’s a actual threat is that if their planning invoice would not embody modifications to inherited EU regulation on protected websites and species, we’re caught with the worst of each worlds: a established order that stops us constructing and in addition fails to guard the countryside”.
But attempts to change those laws would cross a red line for environmental campaigners. The RSPB, which has 1.2 million members, is already sounding the alarm over the rhetoric from Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves.
Chief executive Beccy Speight told me while some parts of government are taking a “constructive” strategy, her organisation would struggle any try to water down the character legal guidelines.
Sir Keir has made ending ludicrous bat tunnels the take a look at of his planning reforms time after time. This might show a a lot trickier problem than anybody anticipated.
