An enormous and heart-felt thank you to all those individuals, organisations, community groups and local politicians who’ve stood up for Lodge Hill and its precious wildlife, and our protected areas all over England by asking Eric Pickles to call-in the decision to build 5,000 houses at Lodge Hill and put it through a full public inquiry.
We can still ask until midnight tonight, so if you’ve not done so yet there’s still time to send your email, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.
Although the deadline for us to ask the Secretary of State to step in and save Lodge Hill is today, a decision does not have to be made immediately. Together, we’ve done everything we can to show that building on Lodge Hill undermines the protection of sites like it all over England and that this matters to us all. However, the final decision is entirely discretionary.
Mr Pickles has just tweeted a link to this statement: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/planning-application-in-lodge-hill-medway announcing that because he is a member of the RSPB, a different Planning Minister will now consider whether or not to call in Lodge Hill (never fear, your emails are getting through to the right place).
As Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Mr Pickles presided over the development of the policy that governs all planning, the National Planning and Policy Framework (or NPPF – far less of a mouthful) in 2012. It was on his watch that the hierarchy of protection of our most special sites was kept in place, in the face of substantial pressure for economic growth to trump environmental protection. It would be a great shame if the excellent protection he oversaw then were undermined by Medway Council Planning Committee’s decision now.
We’re all looking forward to hearing what the Planning Minister who takes over responsibility for this will decide, and we very much hope they uphold Mr Pickles' own good work of two years ago.
I think we should have been told who this Minister is long before the deadline was approaching. It will be interesting to see his credentials and whether he has other affiliations that could be questioned!