The Tale of the Snail and the Much-Delayed Rail
- Davitt Jones Bould
- Sep 5
- 3 min read
Head of ESG, Chris Kerr features in Local Government lawyer, responding to reports that the Government plans to curtail environmental protections in a bid to speed up infrastructure projects:
'Not since 1932, in the famous case of Donoghue v Stevenson,
has a snail been held up to be a mischief to society, but over 90 years on, our
native mollusc is the cause of trouble again.
This time, along with bats, newts and jumping spiders, snails are being
accused by the Government of delaying the building of homes, infrastructure and
our economy.
The result has been a highly controversial Part III of the
Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and a mooted new Planning Bill, which, if
reports are to be believed, will remove some of the species from the list of
those protected by UK law, limit legal challenges from environmental
campaigners and abolish the EU “precautionary principle” that forces developers
to prove new projects will have no impact on protected natural sites.
With housing and nature in major crisis, and the solution
centring on the use of space, how local leaders make decisions will have a
lasting impact on place, people and politics for years to come.'
Read the full article:
Find out more about Chris here.
Christopher Kerr(Head of ESG)
Christopher heads up Davitt Jones Bould's Environmental, Social and Governance Group, and also the firm’s Coastal Regeneration SIG. He has a particular focus on biodiversity & natural capital, nature recovery, town and city regeneration projects, coastal regeneration work, charitable organisations and the public sector. He has, for example, been an active member of Habitat for Humanity's Empty Spaces to Homes Coalition, helping them to drive forward their scheme to solve the housing crisis through an innovative scheme. As part of this role, he has contributed to two All-Party Parliamentary Groups and Audit Wales review of brownfield land housing developments
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