Lincolnshire nature plan described as 'moving deckchairs on the Titanic'
A new plan to restore nature in Lincolnshire has been described as “moving deckchairs on the Titanic” by the county’s leader.
The Local Nature Recovery Plan aims to restore and expand the county’s natural features as part of a government initiative.
However, leading Reform councillors said the plan would be meaningless while the government continued to approve huge solar farms and didn’t replace failing flood defences.
The executive committee described it as “absolutely backwards” on Tuesday, June 9.
Leader Councillor Sean Matthews said: “Given the plan seems to be a steady withdrawal from the coast, losing huge chunks of the environment to flooding. Why are we bothering?
“The government’s priority should be saving Lincolnshire as it is – not moving deckchairs around the Titanic.”
Councillor Natalie Oliver told the meeting that the county’s environment would be “catastrophically ruined” by the construction of huge solar farms and the lack of new flood defences.
“I support everything the plan wants to do, but if the government wants us to produce these things [but] then destroys Lincolnshire as we know it, why are we even talking about this?” She asked.
“It’s absolutely backwards.”
Solar farm developers claim that the construction of large “nationally significant” projects would not harm nature, although opponents say it would ruin the landscape.
Reform Councillor Tom Catton also described the plan as a “strategy being forced on us with no teeth”, and warned future costs could fall on the council without more government funding.
The Environment Agency estimates it will cost billions of pounds to replace the East Coast flood defences, with 90 per cent expected to fail in the next 20 years.
The barriers between Saltfleet and Gibraltar Point protect 20,000 homes and 38,000 static caravans which are below sea-level.
The organisation is drawing up a 15-year masterplan to replace the defences, for which it will seek huge sums of government funding in the coming years.
The council’s executive approved the new nature strategy, despite the criticism of government policy.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been contacted for comment.