25 signatures reached
To: Members of Parliament
STOP the Neighbourhood and Infrastructure Bill
Please do not empower the new Neighbourhood and Infrastructure Bill in its current form, which contains vague and potentially harmful clauses that will ultimately substantially reduce, or entirely remove, local authority requirements, in the case of archaeology currently provided for under NPPF 12, for pre- commencement archaeological and wildlife surveys ahead of housing developments.
Why is this important?
Enactment of such a bill runs counter to the commitment by the current government to the active preservation and enrichment of our diverse historic environment, as it will arguably severely undermine already denuded curatorial provision within the current planning system, on a local and national level. At its worst, the bill will ultimately sacrifice our joint historical and ecological resources in the name of short term profit and speculative economic stimulus, encouraging large scale development without adequately making provision for assessment of the presence of, and likely impact upon, known, as well as currently unknown, archaeological and ecological resources to hand. This can, and almost certainly will, lead to the wholesale destruction of important archaeological and ecological resources, with no regard to the potential benefit they offer to the wider academic and communal knowledge base relating to our shared historic environment, not to mention the long term economic potential such resources may offer to the nation as a whole and local communities alike. On the contrary, in most cases, this will undeniably result in their absolute and irrevocable destruction, to the detriment of all.
