Green groups alarmed over Boris Johnson's threat to ignore environmental concerns to speed up building projects

Boris Johnson’s plans to “build, build, build” represent a threat to the UK’s natural environment and an obstacle to hopes of reining in climate change, green groups have warned.

The prime minister promised in his economic recovery speech in Dudley to “build better and build greener” and talked up the prospects of zero-carbon buses, new cycleways, tree-planting and the world’s first zero-emission long-haul passenger plane.

But environmentalists said his focus on road-building would simply entrench the climate crisis, while green spaces were put at risk by his promise to sweep away “newt-counting” environmental regulations which slow the progress of development projects.

And Friends of the Earth said his suggested spending amounted to only around £100 per person a year, warning: “You can get a Netflix annual subscription for that, but not a green recovery.”

Mr Johnson said that delays caused by “newt-counting” were “a massive drag on the productivity and the prosperity of this country”, but did not spell out exactly how he intended to speed up the process of assessing the potential environmental harm of a building plan.

His official spokesman said only that he was referring to the fact that environmental assessments can take “months and months” to complete.

But Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said that the notion that environment regulations were blocking new homes was “a zombie idea which never seems to die”.

“It’s deeply worrying the prime minister is pushing the false choice between vital nature protections and building new houses,” he said. “Slashing them risks driving a wrecking ball through the green spaces we’ve cherished during lockdown.”

Mr Sauven described the PM’s package as a “missed opportunity” for those who hoped the recovery would see a definitive shift towards investment designed to deal with the climate emergency as well as boost the economy.

Mr Johnson promised to “build back greener and build a more beautiful Britain”, with a plan to re-forest the country by planting 75,000 acres of trees every year by 2025.

But Friends of the Earth campaigner Muna Suleiman said: “The prime minister’s speech did little to suggest that he recognises the true scale of the climate and nature emergencies our planet is hurtling towards. A green and fair recovery should be the centrepiece of government plans, not some detailing at the very edges.

“Boris Johnson won’t build back greener by investing in yet more roads, which will only lock us further into the climate crisis. It’s time to end our fossil fuel and car dependency and build a cleaner, fairer future.”

Acting Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey dismissed the speech as “a lot of Boris bluster.”

“Johnson promised a green recovery from the pandemic, but as usual his promises are meaningless,” said Mr Davey. “We’re seeing yet more mass investment in road building rather than in new infrastructure for cycling, and the construction of new homes without also tackling our existing draughty houses.”

And Labour’s mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “The climate emergency remains one of the biggest threats we face. As we recover from Covid-19, we can’t replace one health emergency with another . We need to come out of this crisis embracing a new normal which puts tackling the climate emergency at the heart of everything we do.”

Shaun Spiers, executive director of Green Alliance, said: “Boris Johnson’s speech should have fired the starting gun on a healthier, more resilient future for the UK. Unfortunately, the PM seems to have got off to false start.

“This statement today is about putting shovels in the ground, but there is no point in that in the long term if it digs the UK deeper into trouble. Whether it’s ‘build, build, build’ or ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’, thousands of constituents around the country are today lobbying their MPs to say they want a truly green recovery.“

Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk