Chancellor evicts snails (with homes) for humans (without homes)

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves doubled down on delivering homes this week when she unblocked a development of 20,000 homes that were being held up by a snail. 

The Government has been working on planning reforms that could include abolishing the EU-derived habitats regulations that protect rare animals, and adding more pro-building amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is going through parliament. (Admittedly this Bill is progressing about as fast as these snails).

The Chancellor said “We knew about that issue because we’ve got a good relationship with the developer and he brought it to our attention. I didn’t just use it as an example of how bad things were but set about fixing it.” 

She went on to describe the frustrating delay to 20,000 new homes as being due to “some snails on the site that are a protected species or something”, adding: “They are microscopic snails that you cannot even see, and they haven’t been able to build there.” 

Now I want to be VERY CLEAR, I am not dismissing or belittling VALID concerns about biodiversity and nature recovery. But, the reality is that for far too long we have been more concerned about the welfare of newts, bats, dormice and snails than we have been about human beings. And that is no longer sustainable. 

We are conducting a piece of research into the levels of people in temporary accommodation and the numbers are truly horrific. Every Council across the county has seen dramatic increases in their expenditure on temporary accommodation and some 326,000 people (including a heart wrenching 169,000 children) are trapped in temporary accommodation. To give you a comparable idea, that is roughly the size of Leicester…and it is bigger than the whole of Cardiff. 

It is a thorny issue, but the Government is doing exactly the right thing by leading from the front. We, as a society have some very serious questions to ask ourselves about how we react to new homes. It is very easy to say: “I am all for new homes but just not near me” or the thousand and one other reasons we find to object to housing (like using snails as a reason). If you are lucky enough to have a warm, secure and nice house you should stop and think about the 326,000 people that are not in that privileged position. 

The reality is that accommodating continued and flourishing biodiverse areas can work perfectly in harmony with housing development (and is indeed a legal requirement on ALL developments and there is no indication of that being scrapped) but what we can’t do is stop tens of thousands of homes for our fellow human beings built. Those 126,000 children need a secure start in life for our society to flourish and grow and we have a responsibility to ensure that they do. 

As for our friend the snail, they will also have a home even if they haven’t got thousands of acres of open countryside to roam. 

Until next week,

Henry  

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