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Reforms to change how environmental concerns are addressed in the UK planning system have sparked job security fears among thousands of ecologists, according to senior industry figures.
The proposed measures will significantly reduce the number of protected species surveys required for development to be approved, as part of a government drive to speed up delivery of major infrastructure projects.
The planning and infrastructure bill, which faces its second reading in parliament on Monday, is intended to “get Britain building” and remove obstructive regulation.
But Jason Reeves, head of policy at Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, said the overhaul could lead to job losses and deter young people from entering the sector.
“We’ve had more members contact us about this than any other consultation we’ve had in probably 20 years I’ve been here, that’s how much of an issue this is for members,” he said.
Environmental surveys account for a large proportion of work in a sector that employs more than 10,000 people, according to the CIEEM.
The bill includes the establishment of a “nature restoration fund” that lets developers discharge their environmental obligations by making an upfront payment. The fund will ensure compensation schemes are set up elsewhere in the country to offset habitat and species loss.
The plans will replace current rules under which infrastructure projects must secure mitigation and compensation for environmental harm before receiving planning permission, with developers addressing obligations project by project.
“The planning application does not need to include surveys of the species concerned, and there is no requirement to carry out mitigation work beyond any applicable standard planning conditions,” the government has said.
The CIEEM has 8,500 members but thousands more ecologists work in the UK. Reeves said it was too early to predict the precise impact on the sector but that there was a “definite risk” of major job losses.
The changes could also undermine the UK’s target of protecting at least 30 per cent of its land and sea for nature by 2030 as part of an international target agreed at a UN Biodiversity Summit in 2022.
Stephanie Wray, former CIEEM president and founder of Athene Consulting, questioned pledges from ministers that the changes do not amount to a watering down of ecological standards.
“I can’t find an ecologist who thinks that this would be equivalent to the protection we currently have,” said Wray.
Critics of the bill are concerned about a delay between habitats being destroyed and later rebuilt elsewhere through the nature restoration fund.
“That means the habitat won’t be there in place in time to replace what’s lost,” said Wray. “If there’s a gap in habitat provision, then you might have local extinctions.”
Ben Kite, group strategy director at environmental consultancy EPR, said the bill represented “one of the most significant rollbacks of environmental protections in decades — rushed through with minimal scrutiny and serious consequences for our most valuable natural sites”.
Ministers have repeatedly criticised ecological concerns for holding back infrastructure delivery, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer dubbing a £100mn bat tunnel built by High Speed 2 as “an absurd spectacle”.
On Monday, the government said regulator Natural England would drop its requirement for planning officials at local authorities to read guidance documents produced by the Bat Conservation Trust.
Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Creating a false enemy in regulations that protect bats is a distraction, [both] ineffective and morally wrong.”
A bigger reason for delays to housebuilding was the fact that the construction industry was “landbanking” and sitting on consents for a million housing units, which they had not built to control the price of housing, said Wray.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that “for too long, regulations have held up the building of homes and infrastructure”, adding the reforms would deliver “a win-win for the economy and nature”.
