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Wenny Meadow is an important site for wildlife within Chatteris, but Cannon Kirk want to build 93 homes on it. It is the last Natural Green Space within the town, and the applicant’s own ecologists said it is of “county level importance” for certain types of wildlife and of “district level importance” for others.

On Wednesday 5th July 2023 councillors on the planning committee voted 6-to-1 to accept the officer recommendation to approve building on the site. Cllr Paul Hicks voted against. We think the decision to approve the application was fundamentally flawed, so we want to take it to Judicial Review.

Our argument hinges on the fact that the extent of Biodiversity loss was dramatically disputed, with the applicant’s own ecologist believing the on-site loss to be 19.28% of biodiversity units and The Wildlife Trust assessing the loss at 32.19% of units. With “off-setting” at a site 11km away, the applicant thinks there will be a 5.80% net gain but The Wildlife Trust has assessed this to be a 12.9% loss of units overall.

In December 2022, the Wildlife Officer emailed the applicant’s ecologist, explaining why he did not adjudicate on this dispute:

“Fundamentally, there is a disagreement with the overall classification of the grassland within the Biodiversity Metric, which is the source of this disagreement. You are correct that your client is not required to reach 10% net gain and that no net loss is a policy and not a legislative requirement, as such all that is required is that it is demonstrated that the biodiversity mitigation hierarchy has been followed. This means that while net gain is not an absolute requirement demonstrating that the development is as close as possible to no net loss is required. As the Wildlife Trust is a statutory consultee in this case their comments hold the same weight as my own and as such their comments will need to be responded to directly.”

The planning officer’s report dismisses The Wildlife Trust’s concerns on the basis that the Wildlife Officer did not make any objection:

“The Wildlife Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England have been consulted as part of this application and they have raised objections to the proposal. However, Fenland’s Wildlife Officer has also been consulted and not raised an objection to the proposals subject to a range of conditions. Natural England have also not raised an objection.”

We’re in a position where the council’s wildlife officer didn’t account for The Wildlife Trust’s concerns because they expected that the planning officer would, but the planning officer assumed the wildlife officer had accounted for them so didn’t give them any weight. In the end, neither person gave weight to The Wildlife Trust’s objections and they appear to have been given little-to-no weight at all.

From November 2023, developers will need to provide a 10% Biodiversity Net Gain by law. This will be based on calculations from the “biodiversity metric” tool, which is the same tool that has led to disputed calculations between the applicant’s ecologist and The Wildlife Trust. Clearly decisions can’t be taken where these figures are disputed, and there needs to be some mechanism for resolving them.

We’re now seeking legal advice on whether we can apply for a judicial review of the council’s decision to approve the application, but we only have six weeks to do so. We will work with other organisations to do this, but we need your help.

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