Angela Rayner has announced that the government will aim to build 370,000 new homes, up from the 300,000 a year implied in the party’s manifesto. But if the deputy prime minister really thinks that all she needs to do to achieve that target is to take on Nimbys – as Rayner and chancellor Rachel Reeves have suggested in recent weeks – she needs to take a trip to a slice of the ‘grey belt’ in Essex. There, a 206 acre farm at Harold’s Farm near Epping is to be turned over to rewilding.
Why is the cost of encouraging rewilding being lumped on new housing?
Some locals have announced themselves to be delighted because it means the land will not now be developed, as they feared, for housing. That is a predictable Nimby response, but it is not really the point.
The land has been purchased, and will now be rewilded, using money raised from a levy on house builders through something called Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) rules.
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