On Thursday night, we heard that government was making big concessions on its planning bill, putting lots more controls on its nature recovery plans. I find this disappointing. And to explain why, I have to tell a story I’ve been holding off from sharing.
I should stress: this is not a fictional story – it has affected real people. Some within the past few days. If you’ve been affected, I’m so sorry. I did think hard about whether to post this. But I also feel - very strongly - now is the time to speak up.
The A47 Acle Straight is a textbook example of bad infrastructure. A terrible road that is loathed by locals, chokes the nearby economy, and is decidedly dangerous. I put it front and centre of my paper about how poor infrastructure was helping Reform win seats
The A47 is a long road, and the MPs club together to make the case for upgrades. They all agree the Acle Straight is the worst bit. In 2014, they got approval for multiple improvements. But not the Acle Straight
That is because the Acle Straight runs through the Norfolk Broads national park.1 And, in particular, it runs by a SSSI where you will find the Little Whirlpool Ramshorn Snail. The snail is officially ‘vulnerable’. Meaning that the planning system goes a long way to protect it.
Not as rare as some people have claimed (‘3 sites in the UK’). You’ll find it in the red areas locally and the yellow areas nationally.2
(And probably more, because people generally haven’t gone looking)
But in 2014, we concluded that the snail would make it hard to get approval to build. So the Acle Straight stayed out of the programme, but we knew we had to do something.3 So we started a study into relocating the snails to another site.
This isn’t a study on how to keep the snails from being wiped out – there are more elsewhere. The discussion is over a strip of their habitat about 10m wide. But the logic behind the protections is never a step back. What damage you can’t avoid, you must mitigate.
And unfortunately, the replacement colonies haven’t thrived. The study reported back saying ‘not yet’ in 2015. And in 2018. And in 2022. And will again this summer. Which means the road remains unfixed.
This got media coverage in January, as a story about how tiny snails were allegedly blocking growth. But that’s kind of beside the point.
What matters is that since 2020 five people are dead.
Sorry. Six. There was another one on Wednesday.
Some old. Some young. Three of them within a week either side of Christmas day. Most of them at about 5:00pm, when the light is fading.
They’re all the same kind of accident: head-on collisions that would not occur on a dual carriageway. The dual carriageway that the locals have demanded for decades.
And we say ‘Absolutely. Just as soon as we’ve sorted out these snails’
This is the process that the law expects. These snails are precious. If you were to accidentally damage a breeding site, you could go to jail for 6 months. And when we get to planning, the system will ensure that the snails’ interests are properly looked after.
You might imagine that there is a balancing going on. There is not. One of the things people underestimate in environmental matters is how total these protections are once invoked. The six dead humans lie outside of any environmental calculations.
And that’s why I liked the government’s new biodiversity protection system. It gave us a way out.
An ‘environmental delivery plan’ gave a mechanism to say this is urgent, get working, while counterbalancing the damage through improving another site. You’d think of that as win-win.
But some people don’t think win-win exists. They see the protection of nature as a zero-sum game, where you must stop every threat and ensure nature always comes first.
They’d argue it’s the moral thing to do.
And I fear they’ve won. We have six new procedural requirements before the new EDPs operate. Each one a new hurdle or veto point.
This line is the killer – turning a solution into an endless limbo.
Before, EDPs could get things built while improving the environment. Now, the environmental improvement must be delivered and proven before building can start. That’s 10+ years’ difference on the A47. And six gaps in family photos.
I presume it was all needed to ensure that the government could get its bill through the Lords. Having held off amendments in the Commons, now the unelected chamber has put the snails back in their accustomed place. Nature has reasserted itself.
But this is a missed chance to bring balance back to the system. While the spirit of compromise is strong, and before radicals show up and make a point of breaking old rules.
The story of the Acle Straight will end somehow. If we don’t craft that ending now, someone else will.
I know, I know - not technically a National Park.
Or, to be slightly more precise, I made bloody certain we didn’t just say ‘too hard’ and walk away
How people chose to drive on a road is up to them.
The UK has signed up to international law, implemented as domestic law, not harm endangered species of wildlife. Doesn't matter if it's a cuddly bear or a slimy snail; that's the thing about laws, you either follow them or you're breaking them.
So yeah, snails, bats, and yes newts, they're protected by law. And some roads don't get built because of that.