Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust: Local voices for nature and climate can be heard — but only if people speak up
Having spent much of the past three decades working to protect fragile wildlife habitats and precious species from disturbance and destruction linked to poorly located or inappropriate development with a system stacked against nature — I’m not that used to being on the winning side in planning battles, writes Erin McDaid of the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.
There’s been a steady erosion of planning safeguards, not least by the ‘Presumption in favour of Sustainable Development’ enshrined in national planning policy back in 2012 and described at the time as a ‘golden thread’ for the planning system. With developers and their lawyers seemingly able to argue that almost any type of development is ‘sustainable’ in some way or other, the presumption in favour has sadly become more like a ‘silver bullet’ — capable of killing off much legitimate and balanced opposition to developments that threaten wildlife habitats or impact key species.
Once you factor in pressures on planning authorities to boost economic growth — sustainable growth is something of an oxymoron — massive reductions in capacity and resources within local authority planning teams and increasingly restrictive laws relating to demonstration and protest, the prospects of success in any fight to protect nature from damaging development have become vanishingly rare.
As a result, it was with great pleasure that, together with my colleague Janice Bradley MBE, our head of nature recovery (north), I joined local campaigners, including members of Frack Free Misson, in Misson Village, in the far north of the county, earlier this week to mark the success of a long and, at times, arduous battle to protect our Misson Carr Nature Reserve from the impacts of fracking.
For the best part of a decade, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has fought cheek-by-jowl with local campaigners in modern day ‘David vs Goliath’ fight which saw us taking on the might of companies determined to extract shale gas — a greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuel — from deep beneath the ground. At times it seemed as if we were fighting the whole shale gas industry which was looking to gain a foothold via experimental drilling sites — backed by a government keen to unlock the revenues from the new industry and willing to change planning rules to make it easier for fracking to succeed.
Campaigners were rightly worried about the potential impacts on Misson Carr’s wildlife — particularly the owls that became emblematic of the whole campaign. They were also worried about earth tremors, water pollution and other impacts on residents' quality of life. The campaign had many facets, not least the determination and dedication of local campaigners, support from other campaigns across the UK and beyond, determined to prevent a whole new fossil fuel industry being created in the face of a combined nature and climate crisis. When expert technical planning responses crafted by my colleague Janice on behalf of the trust, and the resolve of local councillors to support residents were added in to the mix — this eventually became a winning combination.
The long road to protecting Mission Carr’s wildlife and finally seeing off the threat looming over villagers has created many special memories. The day me and Janice visited the protect camp just outside the village; the day I had to run from our office in Sneinton Market all the way to County Hall to hand Janice some new advice from Friends of the Earth’s legal team during a key planning meeting and the day when county councillors voted to make the developers restore the site — signalling the beginning of the end for fracking at the site. Whilst these memories will live long, they now sit alongside the joyous celebrations last week, where campaigners spoke of the value of partnership, solidarity and the need shout from the rooftops that local voices can make a difference.
All too often, people step back from challenging damaging developments in their area believing that they have no chance of success, or that their voice won’t be heard. If I’ve learned anything from working alongside the wonderful folk of Misson and their supporters down the years, it is that local voices can be heard — and can make a massive difference — as long as people speak up and keep speaking up.
