Many of us with experience of new housing developments will know that much is promised at the planning stage, but not all of it is delivered. Researchers from the University of Sheffield have found that half of all the features that housebuilders are legally bound to provide for wildlife never materialise.

Wildlife cannot relocate from one site to another as easily as people imagine, because suitable habitat may not be locally available or is already occupied. Some creatures may adapt and survive, but the reality is that many will perish. Multiplied across the country, this leads to local extinctions of species and a loss in biodiversity.

Since 2012, the National Planning Policy Framework set out by government requires housebuilders to provide important protections for wildlife. Before development, sites must be surveyed to determine what species and habitats are present, then legally binding planning conditions are imposed on the housebuilder to provide replacement habitats for the wildlife displaced by their development.

In spring 2024, a more ambitious system of Biodiversity Net Gain was introduced whereby housebuilders must increase natural habitats by 10% compared to what was there before development, with the aim of breaking the link between development and loss of wildlife, and to boost biodiversity across the country.

However, hardly any attention has been paid to whether the housing developments built comply with their planning conditions. To find out, researchers from the University of Sheffield visited 42 housing estates completed this year – nearly 6,000 houses across 291 hectares in five Local Planning Authorities in England.

They found that just 53% of the measures stipulated by planning permissions, like trees planted, bird boxes, ponds and hedgerows had been delivered; 39% of trees detailed on planting plans were missing or dead; 75% of bat and bird boxes were absent; half of the native hedges promised did not exist.

These omissions should be picked up by planning enforcement officers, but cuts to local authority budgets and understaffing mean they are unable to deal with anything but the most serious breaches of planning conditions. In the view of the wildlife group, Wild Justice, “companies may be gambling that no-one will have time to check whether they have actually met the conditions of their planning permission or not”.

This issue is all the more important as the new Labour government has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes during this parliament, while also being responsible for meeting the UK’s legal commitment to halt species decline by 2030. Yet the protections on which the government is relying to deliver biodiversity gains are not working in practice.

The government is now planning a reorganisation of local authorities which provides an opportunity to consolidate and revitalise planning departments. Extra resources must be put in place to fund planning professionals to carry out inspections, and, when necessary, pursue and prosecute those that do not comply with planning conditions designed to protect nature and enhance the wellbeing of future residents.