Quote:
Originally Posted by nightshade  There should be compulsary training for these ignorant people,not just "advice"
from "consultants" which they ignore because they pay them (and have no respect for their advice) |
Apologies for the following novel.......
This is not always the case. All of the projects highlighted will be conducted alongside thorough ecological survey, hopefully by an ethically sound consultancy of which there are many.
It is not generally the local authority who pay in any case, it is usually the developer and the local authority hopefully reads the results of all of the environmental survey work including ecology, archaeology, air, noise, geology, etc.... and then has to make a difficult choice - I thank my lucky stars that that is not my decision to make - even on a small scale - for example which is more important, fields for skylarks or football pitches for kids???
It's obviously impossible for one person to be an expert in all of these skills and ultimately the person who makes the final decisions can only look for advice
I have to say though that even within my tiny career span (6 years) the level of knowledge and ecological understanding within local authorities has
vastly improved with most that I have dealt with and things are definitely getting better - though as I have said it's not easy decisions that the authority as a whole has to make.
If we are to build new housing, new sports grounds, provide better flood defence, allow for new developments and new businesses (potentially required as the nature of business as a whole in Britain changes), obtain the bare raw materials (gravels and sands used in such development), excavate new landfil (so it's not all shipped out to china or wherever), provide green power, these works have to go somewhere............. finding suitable land is not as easy as you would expect.
I am uneasy also about airport extensions as I don't really see this as a way forward - can't help but feel we shouldn't be increasing flights, but then I don't properly understand the overal big picture of British economy I personally have no idea which areas of the economy / industry are in decline and may need replacing or how our airports may have a part to play in that. - I'd rather see an extension to an existing airport than a new one though. and believe me it won't be easy for them, dealing with the environmental aspects will cost way more than the construction of the runway.
I am not totally defending the decisions just trying to illustrate that it's a situation that is more difficult than it may outwardly seem.
And I stand by my earlier statements that I think sites should be assessed first and foremost on their individual merit, rather than where they are - for example I would save buglife's campaign site on the Thames corridor - industrial Brownfield waste ground - perhaps not pretty but valuable for all sorts of species, over some green pesticided to death farmland on the edge of a town - even if the fields were in the greenbelt - but that's because I will always be biased towards what is most valuable for wildlife.