Plants are essential to everyone's lives. Welcome to Plantlife.
Speak up for wild plants!
Concerned about the Government's new planning reforms? Please show your support for our wild plants and the wildlife they support by expressing your concerns about the lack of protection for their habitats.
September 07 2011
Plantlife is encouraging its supporters to take an active interest in the National Planning Policy Framework and speak out for wild plants and their habitats.
On 25 July 2011, Government published a draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), with a consultation period for submitting comments until 17 October 2011.
As a member of an NPPF working group set up by the Greenest Planning Ever Coalition and coordinated by Wildlife and Countryside Link, Plantlife is concerned with the Government's proposed planning reform in England.
Plantlife is therefore encouraging its members and supporters to take an active interest in the National Planning Policy Framework during the consultation period and speak out for wild plants and their habitats.
The consultation documents are online at HERE and the consultation closes on 17 October 2011.
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Chiltern gentian: a rare plant that grows within the Chilterns Escarpment IPA © John Pitts
The NPPF working group
The NPPF coalition is supported by a total membership of 6.5 million and have published a manifesto, Our Vision for the Future of Planning (click to download), calling for a national planning framework which:
- Sets a benchmark for the quality of development,
- Protects greenbelt land and threatened habitats,
- Promotes strategic planning across local authority boundaries.
Ensuring that we can successfully adapt to and mitigate climate change and provide the public with an effective say in decisions are also key objectives for the coalition.
In particular, Plantlife would like to see Important Plant Areas (IPAs) safeguarded. IPAs are areas of landscape defined as being of the highest botanical importance, containing internationally important habitats and plant and fungi species.
Case study: The Chilterns
The Chilterns is one of 150 Important Plant Areas in the UK, and Plantlife is concerned that such areas may be lost as the proposed presumption in favour of ‘sustainable development’ does not recognise the need to protect our vulnerable wildlife within the definition of ‘sustainable’. The HS2 rail link is one development that would affect the Chilterns IPA.