Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Developers routinely ignore nature commitments

Developers often promise environmentally-friendly features to gain planning approval, but a recent study shows these commitments are routinely ignored once permission is granted. The lack of enforcement by under-resourced planning authorities allows this pattern to continue unchecked.

A study led by the University of Sheffield’s School of Planning and commissioned by the wildlife charity Wild Justice, examined 42 developments granted planning permission after 2012. The research spanned nearly 6,000 homes and more than 291 hectares of land across five local planning authorities. 

The team searched for 4,654 trees and 868 bird and bat boxes. They surveyed many hectares of what were promised to be wildflower grasslands, ponds, and hedgerows. They found that only 53% of the ecological features that had been a condition of planning permission were present. When they excluded newly planted trees, this fell to just 34%. 

Key findings include:  
* 39% of trees identified in planting plans were either missing or dead 
* 48% of native hedges that should have been planted were missing 
* 75% of bird and bat boxes were not installed 
* 83% of hedgehog highways were absent 
* None of the promised invertebrate boxes were installed. 

The study highlights a lack of monitoring and enforcement due to under-resourced enforcement teams, unable or lacking the skills to monitor the ecology of new developments. 

A summary of the research findings has been published by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) to expose the failings. RTPI’s own research has shown that 80% of planning enforcement officers believe there are insufficient staff to manage the workload, and 41% of local authorities lack the ecological expertise necessary to implement biodiversity net gain policy (BNG) effectively…
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