Campaigners say MoD and local authority agreed ‘bespoke metric’ to push through permission to develop Middlewick Ranges in Essex
The Middlewick Ranges are an ecological marvel by the standards of 21st-century Britain. The army firing range near Colchester, Essex, has been untouched by a plough for nearly 200 years, allowing skylarks and nightingales to feast on the threatened invertebrates and insects that thrive in the rare acid grassland.
Yet a plan to sell off the ranges to build more than 1,000 homes has prompted accusations from campaigners that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has rewritten environmental protection rules to suit its case.
Acid grassland – named after the acidic soil that supports fine grasses and lichens – has almost disappeared from England, and is protected under guidelines from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Planning rules allow developers to build on some types of rare land, including fens, wetland and woodland, so long as they offset the loss by creating replacements. Defra’s Biodiversity Metric allows them to calculate how to do that.
“Under the Defra metric, it says that the score is too high to allow development,” said Richard Martin, from the Save the Middlewick Ranges group. “They couldn’t use it, so they came up with their own one. It’s crazy.”
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...enting-rules-wildlife-haven-middlewick-ranges
The Middlewick Ranges are an ecological marvel by the standards of 21st-century Britain. The army firing range near Colchester, Essex, has been untouched by a plough for nearly 200 years, allowing skylarks and nightingales to feast on the threatened invertebrates and insects that thrive in the rare acid grassland.
Yet a plan to sell off the ranges to build more than 1,000 homes has prompted accusations from campaigners that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has rewritten environmental protection rules to suit its case.
Acid grassland – named after the acidic soil that supports fine grasses and lichens – has almost disappeared from England, and is protected under guidelines from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Planning rules allow developers to build on some types of rare land, including fens, wetland and woodland, so long as they offset the loss by creating replacements. Defra’s Biodiversity Metric allows them to calculate how to do that.
“Under the Defra metric, it says that the score is too high to allow development,” said Richard Martin, from the Save the Middlewick Ranges group. “They couldn’t use it, so they came up with their own one. It’s crazy.”
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...enting-rules-wildlife-haven-middlewick-ranges