destruction - LJN Blog Posts - Landscape Juice Network2024-03-29T15:43:03Zhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/destructionPlanning and the destruction of UK Hedgerowshttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profiles/blogs/planning-and-the-destruction2010-12-03T00:00:00.000Z2010-12-03T00:00:00.000ZSustainable Land Managementhttps://landscapejuicenetwork.com/profil/SustainableLandManagement<div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">Green issues; the environment, biodiversity, sustainable development, permaculture, forestry and landscapes etc., have a large and irreversible presence on the web in printed media and in most people’s psyche also. Campaigners in such issues have prominent scientific and academic backing. European, national and local initiatives combine to create an omnipresent force, with some heavyweight NGO, Quango and Business backing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">Yet if a local planning department allow an application like this - <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wtcampaigns.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/fighting-hedgerow-removal/"><b>Woodland Trust; Fighting hedgerow removal</b></a> - to go ahead it would mean that all the above is merely toothless rhetoric. The shameful element to this is that this is just one current application amongst many that has been able to get into the limelight.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">With the UK Government pledging to plant 1,000,000 trees a year, it can easily save existing large quantities of identified important natural resources of real value, simply by enforcement, (free to the taxpayer).<br/></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span><br/><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">Planning departments are very powerful and many take this power seriously and respond correctly, (indeed the planning department in charge of the above may well do also – it is important to bear in mind that the above is an application and no decision has yet been reached). But the reality is that you can travel across the UK and find example after example where in similar circumstances the highly valuable and important natural resources that make up the internationally significant UK landscape have been swept away in the interests of ‘development’ either for construction or agriculture.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">For example: In the village in South Devon where my mother in law lives, there is a planning application for 40 new houses. These houses are needed, there is a real genuine social and economic reason for them to be<br/> built. However brushing aside all hope of sustainable building, the proposed construction site is quite literally a green field site which supports a very rich biodiversity and classic Devon hedgerows, (which have been identified as ‘dangerous to persons and property’ – the ultimate get out clause as all trees fall into this category at some point in their lifetime). In the consultation process, a consultant’s report, (commissioned and paid for by the developer at the insistence of the planners) states the village infrastructure is suitable, (there is a single one lane road for the existing population of 30,000 – no train and infrequent buses) and that this village is not a ‘tourist’ area despite having three very large campsite and caravan parks within a 3 mile radius. This report can be evaluated by most as ‘poppycock’. But on the basis of this report a large tick was awarded onto the application.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">Many of us will identify with and know of similar stories. And the huge decline in British hedgerows highlights the reality that existing planning procedure is simply inadequate to prevent this from happening.</span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span><br/><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">Unfortunately no matter what can be achieved by way of education and initiatives is simply a drop in the ocean against the brazen and legal destruction of our natural resources. Planning has to see more than a radical<br/> new set of guidelines. It needs overhauling and it needs draconian measures in order to protect itself. It needs policing from several tiers in order to prevent development or agriculture from destroying their own interests and<br/> industry by way of destroying the very environment they aim to utilise.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><br/></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">Innovation, qualified practitioners and financial valuation of our natural resources are ready and waiting to ensure that required development can be carried out without long term damage to our natural environment<br/> and ecology and to utilise them legal directive must be enforced. Unfortunately someone somewhere has to also ensure that agriculture is sufficiently subsidised to allow for the correct conservation and maintenance of these resources also. That will cost a lot of money.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314158708?profile=original" target="_self">UK%20Planning%20System%20Failing%20in%20its%20Duty%20of%20Care%20to%20Our%20Countryside%20J.%20Honeyman.pdf</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314165434?profile=original">ukforestsfragmentation.pdf</a><br/></span></p></div>