RAUK - Archived Forum - Dubious Consultants and Dodgy Councils

Tony, habitat destruction has been one of the banes of my life over the recent past years, I'm still battling Local Development Plan proposals from 1998, I must admit (OOOooer) that my local WT has proved to be of VERY little use over these issues. Fence sitters and jobsworths spring to mind......

I hope you may appreciate the following cynical view - it is self indulgent to a degree but sums a lot of what I come/have come up against!

Dubious Consultants and Dodgy Councils.

In response to a suggestion by a man a few of us know it was decided to pen a few words under this title.

Great care has been taken in order to not directly name names of individuals or organisations. (Names changed to protect the guilty perhaps.)

Some of the practices and recommendations made by both private groups and statutory bodies range from the ridiculous to the incredible.

Some occur through ignorance, some through laziness and some through a direct desire to satisfy a paymaster regardless of the truth.

The excuses of time and money constraints for production of poor results should not carry any weight when considering formal wildlife work

.

The main author of this article is a species specific formal wildlife licence holder and does not gain any financial reward for his wildlife work.

He was once described by a representative of a statutory body as a "persistent bugger". A title that he is proud of.

 This article is not meant as any sort of malicious dig at any one person or group, we can all be as bad as each other at times and are, sadly, all human. I'd love to read a report on Homo sapiens written by Triturus cristatus.

Let us start with a situation where a letter was sent to a civil servant (a wildlife officer relevant to the situation.) To avoid any confusion as to the location a six-figure grid reference was thoughtfully included with the letter.

After a couple of fairly heated conversations on the telephone it became apparent to me that we were trying to discuss two different sites.

Having pointed out that we were not both talking about the same place I was told that what I was saying was still not right (presumably on principle!)

A further letter was then sent (politely edited by a trusted friend), and low and behold agreement was reached.

No admission was made for not checking the location initially and I felt it would have been rude to linger and stare at someone with egg on their face.

Someone whose wages are paid by our taxes.

So lesson one is learnt; - the first line of all correspondence must be

"Please note that I have included a grid reference in order for you to at least know where the site is that you are about to comment on"

During the course of a telephone conversation, with another person whose wages are paid by our taxes, we were discussing the discovery of a new GCN site that just happened to be in a proposed development area. I was really excited at having found and confirmed a new site for cresties. (As I thought I was supposed to be doing in order to list GCN sites as part of someone's stated aims.)

 Well, I was told that there probably wouldn't be many GCN there. I immediately assumed that the person I was talking to already knew of the site and had some prior knowledge of it.

It transpired that he'd never been near the site and the only knowledge that he had of this site was that it was easily capable of satisfying housing figures and would make his job much easier if I'd stop looking for new GCN sites.

Here we learn lesson two; - The second line of all correspondence must be

"I look forward to meeting you on site at the earliest time suitable for the species concerned"

What is the exact definition of a "competent ecologist"?

I was not surprised to recently learn that there is a difference between a licence to survey and a licence to data collect for a developer.

One requires "references and other evidence to support their application" and the other requires employment of "a competent ecologist to undertake those works that relate to the protected species".

(I can provide letter references, or even copies of all quotes included herein.)

 Bearing in mind that most developments take place on land that is either up for sale or has been sold, it doesn't take the brain of Einstein to realise that said land will typically be Private Property.

Therefore any information is, well, private, and any direct questioning cannot be proved without trespassing.

 So whatever the "competent ecologist" says is, believe me, very hard to argue with. As the government sets housing figures and the same government pays the wages of the staff who give the final nod on wildlife issuesà Do I need to spell out my line of thought?

Lesson three is a trickier one; - somewhere in any correspondence must be

"I wish to be reassured that you have, at least, once seen a newt"

Why, oh why, is reptile and, particularly, amphibian work so often hurriedly carried out at unsuitable times of year for the species concerned?

 -We failed to find any newts present despite having put bottle traps out at 20 metre intervals in daylight in late August (as per Bloggs guidelines undated). Therefore this development will not require any money to be spent on newts and will have no effect on amphibians as there aren't any there -

The worrying thing about statements such as this is whether the surveyor actually thinks that their work is sufficient and satisfactory, or whether they are knowingly hoping that they'll get away with it. The former is, sadly, understandable. The latter is immoral and corrupt. (My spy network tells me that in every situation the minimum required to earn the money is the norm.)

So, lesson four reminds us to be as alert as the other person and re-check any quotes to establish if the other person is fluent with the document that they are quoting from.

"A new hedgerow is all the buffer-zone you'll see here". This sort of response is typical of the reaction that confirms the strength of the opposition.

To be up against a consultant that is competent and confident is a reassuring situation as all that is needed is for them to know that they're being watched and monitored.

(There is never a need to worry about asking good wildlife consultants questions; it does them good to know that other people are interested in what they are doing and watching what they are doing.)

I've seen situations where the belief of the boss is that the best is being done, yet the bod running the fieldwork is just doing his job and giving it the minimum that can be got away with.

We'll never totally overcome this sort of attitude though what we can do is assist in making guidelines less open to individual personal situation interpretation.        

The hedgerow scenario is often talked about and to be honest is a bit of an 'in joke'. It harks back to the South American retained corridor habitat as a justification for developing or drastically changing an area in order to make a bucket load of money over a relatively short timescale.

It takes many, many years to create, from scratch, a good hedge. The best hedges are often a couple of hundred years old.

The next rule that I learnt is that if it is at all possible by whatever persistent means,

Inform the local development control enforcement department of your concerns in a persistent manner.        

When a complaint from a mere member of the public is received by the enforcement team and, if when checked on site, you are found to have a genuine concern then the date of your enforcement reference halts any ongoing timescale scenarios.

Also the enforcement teams should be running an automatic reference 'flag' that will alert them to an unsatisfied, and therefore outstanding, case reference. The stumbling block here is the need to, as ever, be very persistent to achieve a site visit.

If you've never phoned a local council then be prepared to be thwarted, put on hold, cut off, be speaking to the wrong person etcàà

I've always found that it's worth getting 'politely cross', as you tend to be pushed up the ladder.

Always suggest that you will put the phone conversation in writing and do so. It doesn't matter what you say, just write it that day and post it off to the person that you were speaking to.

The next couple of rules crop up at this point; firstly,

 always ask the name and position of the person that you are talking to.

The address to write to can then be confirmed by re-phoning the switchboard and checking the details of the relevant bod. (Or bodess)

As an example involving hedgerows for you, a local authority near my village has spent the last two years creating a new sports ground. No bad thing, these sort of amenities are much needed in our area, but they must be done by following the rules along with a good dose of common sense.

Two sections of hedgerow were removed initially that both met the Hedgerow Regulations criteria for being recognised as an important hedge. (Something along the lines of six species of hedge plant per ten metres or something).

When I contacted said local council to be sure that they had notified and had permission to remove these important plants, I was told that as they had a planning application in place for the sports ground and hedgerow removal was covered under this.

WRONG. It wasn't.

Despite the fact that a consultant was being consulted they had no permission to remove the hedges. When I checked with the overseeing authority I ended up speaking to the aforementioned enforcement team. This ensured that suitable sympathetic re-planting occurred and this has now happened.

When we did some history checks on this local council we discovered that they have a history of  destroying natural land areas and usually hope that no-one independent will pick up on it and formally pursue it.

Next rule is:

 never trust a professional to do things by the book in the right order or even never trust a professional to do it right.

Always double check.

We come right back to time constraints.

On occasions I've seen the need to enter into fairly lengthy correspondence over a subject; in fact, on one site we're up to 33 letters having gone back and forth.

 A very positive sign that you have an upper hand is the speed of the return correspondence.

 If you write a letter and get a response by return of post it appears that the other person is on the ball.

In fact it tells you that they haven't put much thought into committing themselves to writing. This is good, as you will be able to respond back within a few days and be able to lead them into a written letter scenario that you are controlling.

'So what?' you may be thinking.

- Dubious Consultants and Dodgy Councils