Ros Wyke tried for more than 25 years, including as leader of the former Mendip district council. Cautious council officers denied the paths planning permission. Then, in 2022, they began experimenting with using “permitted development rights” – the separate process that a farmer uses when building a new track through a field. This much more streamlined process still requires application forms and licences for hedgerow removal, water or drain crossings, and to protect newts or bats. However, it removes the need to survey every tree within 50 yards of a path, for example, and other elements of the planning process designed with large out-of-town developments in mind, like topographical surveys. This can easily cut two years off the process and make a path’s success far more likely. Under this model, planning permission needs to be granted only for those sections of path that meet roads, which cuts delivery timescales from decades to weeks.
This is for a cycle path.
Blow up the TCPA, proper blow up, kablooie.
“Blow up the TCPA, proper blow up, kablooie.”
Well, maybe. Cycle paths good, immigrant shanty towns and gyppo camps bad.
I agree with Sam. There’s definitely plenty of scope to reduce the ridiculous amount of red tape.
I think Tim imagines the result as rows of neat semis with large gardens but It’s clear from developments near me that the result would be tower block rabbit hutches to cram in as many gimmigrants as possible.
My simple way to circumvent the whole regulatory system would be a simple one line Act of Parliament that says all regulations now only apply to limited companies, government bodies and charities (fuck them), not private individuals. Thus catching all the multinationals while letting real people get on with stuff.
“and to protect newts or bats”
Can we just create a massive sanctuary somewhere miles from civilisation? Like in the bits of rural Norn Ireland? The Highlands? Cornwall? Erect some accommodation for some scientists and hippies to make sure that they’re thriving, spend a few million quid a year on that and get on with killing the ones that get in the way of roads and houses being built.
As a former bureaucrat, I definitely agree with ripping up the regs, provided it’s clear and obvious that the results are all the fault of someone else!!
I usually disagree with Jim’s anti-limited comments, but he might have something there.
Certainly some sort of exemption for small-scale operations isn’t a bad idea as a starting point that might actually go through, and that might not be a bad way to start.
Not sure how we’d deal with Sam’s shanty town point though – although since the current law seems unable to stop them, perhaps it’s not a problem.
They can get permission for bat and bird munchers or solar farms easily enough, so there must be some loophole somewhere.
“and to protect newts or bats”
We’ve just finished our annual survey for Great Crested Newts on the local common (a SSSI/SAC) – you need a licence from Natural England to handle or catch them (even temporarily). The dumb thing is that GCNs are thriving in southern England, but endangered on the Continent, so they were included in EU protections. There’s no real reason why these need to continue now we’ve left (though it’s hardly the most significant piece of EU legislation that needs to be repealed).
@philip
But they’re eco-friendly bat/bird munchers and bird incinerators. So you’re allowed to kill them by the truckload that way. You’re just not allowed to bulldoze their homes because that’s not environmentalism.
A licence to even handle them?
I didn’t know that.
We have a site behind our neighborhood with newts.
I of course now would never move them, even when they’re in the road and highly likely to get squished since it’s illegal…
“They can get permission for bat and bird munchers or solar farms easily enough, so there must be some loophole somewhere.”
Er, no you can’t. The timescale for planning for renewables developments is measured in years before a single digger gets on site.
Its indicative of what the PTB really think about climate change – if they were serious it would be a case of ‘File a plan of what you’re going to do with the council, then start digging and pouring concrete’. You know, the way in which when faced with a war to win we managed to cover the entire country in military bases inside a few years. Thats how you behave when there’s a real threat. File an application 3 feet thick in quadruplicate and we might look at it in 12 months time is the way you behave when you’re supremely confident it all doesn’t matter really anyway.
Which species get protected should be devolved to Mayoral Authorities (Eng) and the Welsh, Scot, and NI assemblies. It would make elections more fun as we all love a good seagull attack story. Or to see wolves rampaging in the Fens but nowhere else thanks.
As the superb Chris has said, some species are doing well in one place, not in others, peoples attitudes are different too.
I had to laugh a few months back when some people who are European but not Swiss moaned that Switzerland was going to cull lots of wolves. EU competence doesn’t apply if you’re not in the EU.
Maybe we could fix some of these with time limits on decisions? Though I suppose they’d just wait until the day before the deadline and send back “No”.
I recently wrote to the council on behalf of my Mum and it took them six weeks to reply. The reply was a form asking for the information I originally sent them.
The entire public sector has no interest in doing their jobs, and no incentive to.
Maybe we could fix some of these with time limits on decisions? Though I suppose they’d just wait until the day before the deadline and send back “No”.”
Precisely. The only way to kill the regulatory beast (if its politically impossible to just abolish it) is to start making exemptions at the edges and eat into it that way. The example I can think of is the changes to the planning rules that allowed redundant farm buildings be turned into housing without full planning (Class Q permissions). Basically if you have a set of farm buildings you now have the legal right to turn them into houses, subject to a few rules on areas etc. All you have to do is tell the council what you plan to do, they can’t actually prevent the development happening.
Chernyy Drakon:
“I of course now would never move them, even when they’re in the road and highly likely to get squished since it’s illegal…”
I was looking for a map or something showing their distribution across the UK when I came across this:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/great-crested-newts-protection-surveys-and-licences
Some sense at least.
P.s.,
I found a map:
https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/great-crested-newt-1
@Chernyy Drakon
A licence is only needed for the Great Crested species of newt – easy to identify as they’re twice the size of the other UK species (Smooth and Palmate). The latter will fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, while a GCN’s head and tail would stick out on either side.