New homes could be blocked unless Ulez-style schemes are agreed first
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
This is a clear example of bureaucratic overreach:
New housing is being blocked unless councillors agree to introduce green schemes such as Ulez and low-traffic neighbourhoods, in an approach that the environment watchdog is preparing to roll out across the country.
Natural England, which is already accused of blocking up to 145,000 homes, has commissioned a review of “mitigation measures” that could be used to limit emissions associated with new properties in the vicinity of more than 330 designated areas across the country.
The approach is already under way in the Epping Forest district of Essex, where the local council has sparked anger among residents by drawing up plans to introduce a Ulez-style “clean air zone” from 2025, under which cars and other vehicles would be charged each time they enter the area.
The council said it had been “advised by Natural England, as the responsible statutory body”, that it would be unable to approve new developments unless it simultaneously introduced measures to control air pollution in the area.
The review by Natural England, together with the plans for the Epping Forest district, have sparked fears that the quango will effectively block new homes across the country if green schemes are not set up to mitigate emissions caused by vehicles that would be used by new residents.
The approach appears at odds with the Government’s insistence that it is not “anti-car”, amid fears of a war on motorists fuelled by net zero targets.
One insider familiar with the discussions accused Natural England of green “activism”. The source said “it feels very much like they are trying to put a stop” to people driving in certain areas of the country.
The Telegraph has seen documents in which consultants commissioned by Natural England set out how they were looking at “mitigating emissions from traffic/vehicles associated with new development (residential/commercial)”.
In emails sent earlier this year, the consultants, a firm called Ricardo Energy with a £40,000 contract with Natural England, list examples of potential mitigation schemes as including “low emission zones (LEZs) or clean air zones (CAZs)”.
In one email seen by The Telegraph the firm states: “While these are typically designed to mitigate the effects of traffic emissions on human health, there might be situations where they could be used to address impacts on ecological sites as well.”
The firm added: “Natural England is also interested in learning more about the potential use of ‘soft measures’ to address air quality impacts from traffic emissions.”
As part of its own brief to the firm, Natural England said: “Soft measures can be proposed to address air quality impacts,” and suggested such measures could include “improvements to local public transport such as bus and train services, improvements to walking and cycling infrastructure, low traffic neighbourhoods, 15-minute neighbourhoods, provision of electric charging points and restriction of car parking in new developments and route management strategies for HGV’s etc.”
The environment quango, which is chaired by Tony Juniper, the former head of Friends of the Earth, has asked for examples of evidence that such schemes reduce overall vehicle emissions.
Mr Juniper told The Telegraph: “We simply cannot halt and reverse the decline in nature or improve the quality of our environment – as the Government has legally committed itself to do and is rightly demanded by the public – if we don’t mitigate the impact of pollution sources.”
Approaching bodies involved in the planning process, Ricardo said its brief from Natural England, an agency of the environment department, was to examine potential mitigation schemes for developments near more than 330 so-called Natura 2000 sites, which are protected by regulations deriving from the EU. The sites range from the New Forest to the Rochdale Canal in Greater Manchester and cover more than five million acres.
Natural England is a statutory consultee for proposals that could affect such sites, meaning that it is offered the opportunity to recommend that individual plans are blocked. Councils fear that ignoring Natural England’s advice would lead to prolonged, expensive legal action.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/15/natural-england-block-new-homes-ulez-zones-ltns/
Natural England’s remit is quite clear:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england/about
Conserving the natural environment is one thing. But telling us how to live our lives, what cars we can have and where we are allowed to drive them is quite another.
Worse still, it is the public who are paying for Natural England and its 2000 staff.
It is thoroughly devious for them to claim that their role is only to advise. As the article points out, any local authority who ignores this “advice” is likely to face lengthy and expensive legal action, courtesy of Tony Juniper’s friends in Greenpeace and the rest.
It is a pity that Epping Forest Council did not just turn around to the government, and tell them that they would simply cancel all new developments, which would of course go directly against the government’s new homes agenda.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
This is stupidity based on false premise. For the correction go to https://www.dropbox.com/s/3aavmbj18cc5n21/RvC_scan.pdf?dl=0
How do I know that a random Dropbox link is safe
Stew, it’s a scan saved as a .pdf and my honest attempt at debunking the current Greenhouse Effect hypothesis as simply as possible. It’s an easy read on something that has bothered me for years – probably as long as you have been commenting from Bishop Hill onwards.
It all started with the Covid restrictions which gave the bureaucrats permission to set up a nationwide police state where freedom of choice, freedom of movement and freedom of speech were stolen from us and they realised that that the British population could be made to accept anything. The Climate Police are altering our cities, changing our lives and our choices and there is absolutely b*****all anyone can do about it.
MJJ Exeter
Unfortunately there is not even a viable political party we could vote for in order to get these jerks out of office. They are all as bad as each other and that is VERY bad!
Who you vote for is a difficult choice; unfortunately staying home allows the extremists –who will always vote – to win, with dangerous consequences. Please, do the research, make the choice and shut down the worst offenders !
“not even a viable political party” Yes there are – there is no need for apathy. Both Reform and Reclaim have credible policies. Just remember Macron originally came out of nowhere to become French President. Vote for those you believe in.
REFORM!
Reclaim for me. I wonder what it going to happen today but I suspect the legacy media will avoid the key point – turnout!!!
You can always let you local MP wannbe’s know that you will never vote for an idiot who does not understand science and believes in the climate cult religion… if they argue with tell them to bug off and that you don’t vote for ignorant uneducated people and never be polite… they are woke
Perhaps also flood the e-mail addresses of already “elected” MPs as well.
Nobody voted for the “climate”, “green” and “net zero” hysterics.
>>You can always let you local MP wannbe’s know that you will never vote for an idiot who does not understand science and believes in the climate cult religio
In my area all new development is being held up by what is known as the “Stodmarsh Nutrient Neutrality” report which is supposedly regarding nitorgen and phosphate contamination of the local river system. I just googled it adding Ricardo Energy and guess what – yep it is their report for Natural England and of course it is total BS and will be ongoing for at least the next 3 years.
However, there is now an option of buying “Indulgences”
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/why-thousands-of-new-kent-homes-could-now-be-built-271064/
Nothing like a backhander or two to keep funding the gravy train is there?
Who owns the properties that will benefit due to the increased rental value as demand chases supply? Your town planning system is already amongst the most restrictive in the world.
“Who owns the properties that will benefit due to the increased rental value as demand chases supply?” Well I’ve got three rental properties – could be me but I have nointention of taking the p@ss out of my long term tenants.
I met Tony Juniper years ago. He is as fanatical as Monbiot and Packham. How these characters gain such power over the rest of us is a mystery
Power gain courtesy of the royal family, minor celebs in the media and those who expect plaudits for environmental rectitude. They not so much gain power as are awarded it through the absence of robust counter argument until it is almost too late. Who now takes At……..gh seriously apart from publishers and the broadcast media needing copy.?
“How these characters gain such power over the rest of us is a mystery”
Michael Gove appointed Tony Juniper as head of Natural England in early 2019. James Delingpole discussed the weird decision to appoint him here:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/02/07/delingpole-michael-gove-sold-out-britain-green-blob/
4 1/2 years later that article stands as a perfectly called prediction.
Michael Gove has gone from an effective and productive member of Cabinet to a total liability, while the green movement is now completely out of control.
10/10 for Dellers. 0/10 for the country.
It shouldn’t be. They are the moral descendants of the 1970s union activists who would extend branch meetings till closing time by which time their colleagues with a life (or a thirst or a wife!) would have given up and left.
That was when the real decisions were made which is why the trade unions in that decade were run by hard left fanatics.
The climate/green activist is no different. To them this fanatical interference in other people’s lives is better than sex! In some cases it has replaced it altogether. Most of them, like Monbiot and Juniper are sincere as hell. Which only makes them more dangerous because they are congenitally incapable of accepting as valid any view other than their own.
My reading exactly.
It was the same with the Student Unions in the 1960s, that’s how Jack Straw got to be the leader of the NUS and subsequently became a Labour politician.
Because to many, giving power to such organisations is a way of getting what they want done without the need for elections or democracy. This is the EU in microcosm. The CEOs of these quangos are unelected and largely unsackable, yet wield far more actual.power than your MP. And they are free to pursue any agenda they wish and to accumulate more and more power. If you want to run the country, don’t become a politician, become a civil servant or quangocrat.
“…civil servant…”
The better ones can’t wait to get out, and they leave behind a vacuum which is automatically filled by the enemy. I was speaking to a recently retired, quite senior, civil servant. Although she said, “nothing was done sensibly any longer,” I could see that she never really understood what was going wrong. She said, “too many special advisors interfering!” Those special advisors ARE the government, my dear. Or else they are the Political Commissars. And since they are appointed by people who have been elected it is actually, technically, democratic.
The other problem which we all chew over on this forum in bewilderment is: How does society end up making one insanely stupid collective assumption after another? Essentially it is a matter of prediction. I recently came across an interesting phrase
for an interesting subject, “The ecology of predictors,” which means studying the logic of people predicting in an interacting community.
The math starkly shows that no shared or common forecast can be a good one; deductive logic will fail each participant and therefore the whole community. Reminds me of Groucho Marx who wrote back to a club which he had applied to join and who wrote back encouragingly: “I do not care to be a member of any club which accepts people like me!”
Years ago I was a member of assorted committees, it was a never-ending source of puzzlement to me how it was that a dozen intelligent, sensible members who individually appeared totally rational could collectively produce the most irrational decisions.
As Khan has shown the end game is road charging – by the mile. Having got his ULEZ camera/computer network established he’s now expanding and readying it for pay-per-mile for everyone. That will then be rolled out and Big Brother will really be watching us.
Harry , we already pay-per-mile. It’s fuel tax paid at the pumps. Call it double taxation if you must.
Sadly, that doesn’t work for EVs. ☹
Easy solution. ONLY apply road charging to EVs. And in the meantime, start using the existing extortionate taxes on petrol and diesel to maintain the roads instead of them simply disappearing into the black hole of public spending and unknown bank accounts.
>>we already pay-per-mile. It’s fuel tax paid at the pumps. Call it double taxation if you must.
>>Sadly, that doesn’t work for EVs
“Sadly, that doesn’t work for EVs.”
Give it time!
I must pay more attention.
It seems to me that the cost of charging up EVs means that the car owner must stomach a wide range of charges for electricity depending on the VAT rate for domestic supplier to a householder and the VAT for a supply at a charging station. Clearly I have no EV but I read that the rates at charging stations is variable over a range much wider that petrol or diesel.
Whatever charge or surcharge is made for electricity a charge for mileage could be made as well .Whether electricity or liquid fuel any mileage charge would be in addition. Again double counting.
The problem with petrol and diesel is the disgraceful TAX element of the actual price at the pump. And worse, even if the oil companies did not pay their employees any salaries or otherwise cover the costs of being in business at all, the price at point of sale would not be much lower due to that TAX.
Yet look at the state of the roads (and it is not only the UK – it seems that politicians in European countries actively hate their own populations). Exactly where is all that tax going?
To an extent but that tax depends on your fuel efficiency as well. People don’t go into politics to raise taxes, they go into politics because of the power. And generally “power” means stopping others doing things they don’t like and forcing others to do things they don’t want to do. Khan thinks we shouldn’t drive in London so he will make it harder and harder to do so.
The end-game isn’t pay per mile, it’s rationing – probably with progressive pay-per-mile to begin with.
The elites view road charging as inevitable.
The fuel duty lost by widespread adoption of EVs will need replacing somehow.
And don’t think they will only charge EVs. Of course they won’t.
But where is all that fuel duty actually going? Look at the state of the roads and they will get even worse if people do “adopt” the heavier EVs.
>>The fuel duty lost
Widespread adoption of EVs! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Stopping travel, you meant?
Realist: fuel duty is just another tax that is added to the general taxation pot. There was never any commitment to spend the money raised on the roads. Presumably it is used for NHS, education, pensions, benefits…etc. The tax will need to be replaced with something, otherwise they won’t be able to pay your triple locked pension.
In that case, it should be part of income tax and VAT instead of targeting specific products with vindictive taxes.
>>fuel duty is just another tax that is added to the general taxation pot
I am thankful I no longer live in UK, Who ever voted for all these ridiculous rulings,limiting freedom and the rights of free citizens?
It is non science nonsensical hype.
Where are the bodies and death certificates of the millions supposedly killed by vehicle pollution?
Rant ends
It’s utter garbage. The level of pollutants in the air in the UK is 20-25% of what it was in 1970. So even assuming a straight line of toxicity (which us very unlikely) we should have seen a vast reduction in deaths and clear correlation over that period. Yet the “studies” never show that, instead counting “excess deaths” that they cannot even demonstrate were actually exposed to higher levels of pollutants. The activists claim that small reductions from current levels will save thousands of lives but those reductions from 1970s levels would be barely measurable. Did we all die at 40 back then?
And even before 1970 there were still a lot of people who had reached retirement age and been drawing their pensions for several years. According to the alarmists and anti-mobility fanatics, such people should not have survived. Take a look even today how many pensioners there are.
I have a theory that alarmists, anti-mobility fanatics and others that want to ban things they personally don’t like are hypchondriacs as well as being control freaks and simply hating everybody else.
Communists hate freedom.
Well, I now live in South Africa, and the taxi organisations seem to have what government there is in a stranglehold. Road rules seem optional for combi-taxis, and I cant see any attempt on ‘distance taxing’ having ANY luck here!
‘block new homes across the country if green schemes are not set up to mitigate emissions caused by vehicles’
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/tips-advice/106870/what-are-euro-7-emissions-standards
It seems not to matter how much, nor how often, vehicle exhaust is cleaned up. It’s as if it never happened.
‘that would be used by new residents’
Not sure how this works. If they stay where they are, and don’t move in, they will have no emissions? Local moves would seem to make no difference.
Exactly. At worst, all that happens is that pollution shifts locality. These people simply want no new hones built. Quite why is impossible to fathom, but many seem to live in a fantasy where the housing crisis isn’t valued by a hugely increased population and very few new homes but evil landlords and rich foreigners owning empty houses.
“Quite why is impossible to fathom”
Perhaps there are not concomitant efforts to increase the infrastructure necessary for these new “homes”?
Where are the new reservoirs, sewage works, hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, bus routes, schools, public libraries, railway stations etc. etc. etc. and the requisite staff necessary to the needs of the literally millions of people that have appeared since any of the above have increased proportionally?
I’ll tell you – they aren’t!
Funny how governments are legally committed to reducing the invisible gas of life, CO2, to net zero, but the mass migration visibly smothering the life out of the country is allowed free rein.
Perhaps councils should say, “Fine. We won’t permit any more homes until you (government) get net migration – the real driver of housing shortages and so much else – down below 50,000 pa or, better still, net zero.”
In my outer fringes of the north London shires vast warehouses erase familiar fields domino by domino and block viewscapes, and vast rabbit hutch housing estates, ugly beyond, belief are laying waste the part of England in which I grew up.
Bingo. Mass immigration is obviously the problem for anyone who can add up. Where on earth are the 600,000 new bodies that arrive each year expected to live? Does anyone believe any of the major parties have any intention of actually reducing the numbers? The situation will just get worse until Brits realise they have to stop moaning and do something, as we did decades ago to set Brexit in motion.
I do not think Brexit would even be possible now. The Establishment has adapted to that surprise and now makes sure that the propaganda and dirty tricks and secret black-listing is too overwhelming for populist agitators to survive. Look at Coutts and the BBC. “We have to debunk this shit!” “Nah, we will just debank him.”
Given that politicians in most European countries seem to hate those who live there (ban it culture, increased and invented taxes and regulations, “climate” hysterics etc), it amazes me that the infamous “mass immigration” is even happening at all.
It’s all following the dictates of Agenda 21, the UN/Marxists manifesto designed to end in the One World Government. They stealthily started introducing small changes at the community level that are promoted at the top government level. Top down, bottom up approach that leaves the middle man/class for the worse.
Disgraceful. There is supposed to be a housing shortage, yet who in their right minds would buy a house that they cannot travel to or travel anywhere else from? Such schemes need to be imposed on all politicians and local councillors before they even think about making life worse for everybody else.
There are known consequences.
There are unintended consequences.
And there are unknown consequences.
A review of “the window tax” is insightful.
Also, wallpaper, brick, glass, and hearth taxes were tried.
I especially like the wallpaper tax that got folks
cover walls with plain paper and then draw on it.
Scrap this unnecessary commie quango. We have Defra -Dept for Environment and rural affairs. Also Environment agency – multi thousand person quango, and Natural England! Talk about duplication of interferring communists! Scrap the quangos and let DEFRA do the little amount of actual work that needs to be done. Of course scrap the Climate Change Commie Committee as well!
England Arise and scrap all Quango parasites!
It’s a feature, not a bug. DEFRA – at least notionally – answers to a minister we elect. And since Thatcher (with Trump and Brexit as reminders), our Betters have understood that we make bad choices and the Right Things don’t then get done. So power has been transferred to those we don’t elect and cannot get rid of. A very similar thing happened in the US, where the federal government assumed huge powers that were formerly reserved for the states and then transferred those powers to federal agencies. The Supreme Court is rolling back some of those powers. And of course in Europe, the solution was the EU.
The education of lawyers involves a study plan from the time of the Ark! The biggest area of practical, high-powered law, for many decades, has been ‘Regulation.’ How to avoid being destroyed by it if you are an Outsider, and how to capture it to your profit if you are an insider (a crony capitalist or an oligarch or an apparatchik…they are on the same teat).
Somebody said Macron “came from nowhere.” It seems that way to people who think that democracy actually means something. I would bet money that Macron was always held in reserve by the real powers of the world, specifically as a ‘fresh face’ to see off a populist challenge from someone like Le Pen when the ‘old faces’ were raddled horrors.
Remember Jimmy Carter? He came from nowhere. And he went back where he came from. Or not exactly. For the last fifty years he has been allowed to sit on the Boards of banks and lick the cream.
For all Natural England does, perhaps it could be run by one person at home on their computer. As for 2000 employees! What do they do all day?
“What do they do all day?”
Shirk at home, walk the dog, play with their Peletons, watch Netflix, the same as 95% of “Public Servants” and Quangocrats, all the while watching their 100% gold plated pensions increase exponentially, of course!
Off thread I know but our sainted windmills are producing one point three gigawatts as I write. Bring forward the hydrogen.
We have to cleanse our politics of these Left wing idiots. All the Quango’s are run by superfluous lumps of Leftist ideology and here we have one, run by a long term idiot, who hires a company, given a narrow remit to come up with ‘solutions’ it wants to impose, unrelated to housing. And we pay for them to destroy the country!
Oh, shame. We are not going to build houses for immigrants then as they are creating the demand.
And another problem with housing caused by Tony the Liar – the mass increase in students and the accommodation for them. As they have a home elsewhere, they are taking up twice the space and keeping the lower paid out of the housing around universities. It is the 20th anniversary of Blair and Alistair Campbell conspiring over the murder of Dr David Kelly.
Another EV take down.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12317297/Why-electric-car-near-green-think-hidden-eco-pitfalls-NetZero-causes-pin-up.html
I will try to make this as factual as I can.
The Russians (probably rightly) claim that shipping has been used to launch attacks on Crimea. So today the Russians have said that any ships that remain in the port of Odessa, no matter what flag they sail under, from midnight tonight will be considered as aiding Ukraine and subject to attack. The German paper Bild is now demanding that warships are sent to the area.
It is my view, that the Russians will do what is necessary to win in Ukraine, because e.g. they saw what happened in Iraq (the lie about WMD used to attack Iraq), and they are not allowing that to happen in Russia. So, if warships are send, they will be warned, but if they stay in the area, they will be attacked.
It is also my view, that the US want to provoke a more general war, so that they can bring in what they believe is a “game changer” weaponry (like all the previous “game changer” weaponry they gave to Ukraine … which has been didn’t change anything, except the Russian resolve to win).
As such, I think there is now a foreseeable set of circumstances that could lead relatively rapidly to a nuclear war.
oops sorry! I hit send before checking.
The BBC (WATO) just called Lord Stern a ‘climate change expert ‘!! He says that Florida will be underwater soon! I truly despair of the governance of this country.
Listened longer to Stern and I really think he is certifiable. Followed now on BBC by Deben!! At no time were they asked whether China should lead on mitigation and not us.
I really think we’ve had it.
Florida is the fastest growing US state population wise and many many people continue to retire there. It is now the third most populous state in the US. Lord Stern should retire there himself. and warn all the newcomers about their coming fate 🙂
But..but..but….what about the higher temps there? All those older people at the risk of being victims of the climate emergency!! Why can’t they go back north – and freeze to death??
Lord Stern says that Florida will be underwater soon!
The Florida peninsula is a porous plateau of karst limestone covered with sand and filled with water. There are extended systems of underwater caves, sinkholes and springs. High tides tend to raise the water in these voids. Relatives lived in Greenacres, about 6 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. It is a daily occurrence to see the water rise in the canals and ditches. Wild things (alligators etc.) are at home in these places.
In this respect, much of Florida is already flooded.
Over a year ago, Kip Hansen (frequently on WUWT) posted on Sea Level Rise:
I don’t know what the UK’s Lord Stern means by “soon” but such predictions have been around for many years and will remain so well into the future. Look at this 2015 statement:
https://www.nationalwaterrestoration.com/blog/south-florida-predicted-to-be-underwater-in-2025/
” … we would have to drastically cut carbon so that atmospheric carbon levels reach their peak in 2020 — five years from now.”
BBC, eat less meat to save equivalent of 8 million cars.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66238584
Even if true, oh but wait….
https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/biodiesels-impact-emissions-extra-12m-cars-our-roads-latest-figures-show/
All these nutty ideas are just fiddling at the margins, but trying to sound like they are actually worthwhile.
I’ll believe they are serious when they start talking about nuking China. All other ‘solutions’ are Kabuki theater.
Do you want to buy a house in a Ulez zone.
Not me.
The developers may well get the housing approved, but what is the point of building houses that nobody wants to buy?
>>New housing is being blocked unless councillors agree to introduce green schemes
I wonder whether the result of the by-election in Uxbridge will cause any party to change their policy. Clearly Labour lost it due to the very unpopular ULEZ scheme. Time or a re-think.
Labour did lose, Blue Labour won
New vid from Geoff as media say the public don’t like Green based on the anti-ULEZ by-election result
‘No the word green has been hijacked, opposing ULEZ and othet crazy net zero policies is not anti-green”