Planning and development in Bucks
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It seems that the Bucks countryside is being assaulted on all sides with HS2, the Oxford-Milton-Keynes cross country rail line and the Governments National Planning policy, which has demanded thousands of new homes that have to be built in Buckinghamshire in the next 17 years. Milton Keynes needs to build 90,000 new homes and the southern counties 43,000 new homes. However, as South Bucks, Wycombe and Chiltern Districts will be unable to meet their targets, Aylesbury Vale will not only have to meet their own target of 33,000 houses but will to build an extra 12,000 homes, as well.
The Government has asked every District council which has Green Belt in their area to draw up local plans to highlight those areas which could be taken out of Green Belt designation. This is a slow chipping away of the Green Belt which this government has promised to protect. Indeed Sajid Javed said on 10th July 2017 that “the green belt can be rightly protected.” It seems that this is a hollow promise. There are plenty of brownfield and infilling sites to cope with the demand for new housing needed.
There is also talk of developing new towns in the area, with Haddenham or Winslow as a site for a town of some 4500 new houses to be built.
The new ross rail line is also expected to have new housing development along the length of the line equivalent to 20 cities the size of Cambridge. The majority of the building seems to be in Bedfordshire, but the plans propose that some of this huge growth will be in the Marston Vale between Milton Keynes, Aspley Guise and Bedford. This will lead to massive and unacceptable damage to the countryside.
As you can see, the countryside of Buckinghamshire is at so much risk and therefore it must mean that the badgers of Buckinghamshire are also at risk from these massive developments, whether it is because their setts are in the way and will be destroyed, or whether the setts are so close to the developments that they are scared away or whether the developments build across their feeding pathways and cut off their normal food supply.
If you know of any such developments in your area and you feel there may be badgers on the land that could be affected, please contact the Bucks Badger Group. We may already know about it, but we don’t know the whereabouts of every sett in Bucks and your information could be extremely useful and could save a badger’s life!
