It’s been a while since there have been any major decisions regarding Tipner West, a peninsula in Portsmouth Harbour where destructive plans would build houses over intertidal mudflats and a coastal grassland, highly protected as a site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Protection Area and Ramsar site. 

We had hoped that today’s full council meeting would follow the momentum of a similar meeting this time last year where councillors overwhelmingly voted to ‘pause and rethink’ the land reclamation plans, then named the ‘super-peninsula’ or ‘Lennox Point’. It was clear then, as it is now, that the people of Portsmouth and most councillors themselves do not want internationally protected wildlife at Tipner West to be bulldozed in the name of new houses. 

After months of delay and dithering, this meeting was intended to set a new course for Tipner West by agreeing on a set of principles created by council officers which would shape the future plans drawn up for Tipner West.  

A cross-party working group had already spent months discussing the conundrum of what to do Tipner West and settled on a reasonable development within the existing land mass of the site, and importantly, avoiding the red lines for nature. But the new principles put forward yesterday leaves the door open for an option with land reclamation, against the majority of the councillors and public desires.

The council’s principle nine simply states “Minimises land reclamation to meet the principles listed above and provide biodiversity net gain of a minimum of 10%”, essentially placing the other principles (e.g. how many houses or employment space) above the need for protecting the designated habitats from land reclamation.   

Debbie Tann, Chief Executive of the Trust’s made it clear in her deputation yesterday (at 26 minutes in) that these are red lines for nature that cannot be crossed without setting damaging national precedent:  

“There is no more compromise to be found on our side, we’ve worked hard to help the council find a solution. If the council persists in trying to build on any protected land or sea, we will be forced to oppose it again in the strongest possible way and make this a national issue once again.”

Instead, we wanted to see the principle changed to ‘Avoids any land reclamation for the purpose of increasing the development area and provides a biodiversity net gain of 10% as a minimum’   

In a debate filled with confusion and inaccuracies, some council leaders including Cllr Steve Pitt unhelpfully claimed that the Trust and RSPB have moved the line in the sand since the start of our campaigning about which parts of the site development should avoid. Our crystal-clear message from the beginning has been to avoid building on all the protected sites, whether land or sea, don’t go there, and don’t cross that red line for nature. 

The Portsmouth Council meeting was hard to listen to, not least because it is clear how deep a hole the council have buried itself in. After spending almost £20 million pounds on multiple versions of damaging land reclamation plans, council leaders clearly still believe that the only way to salvage the finances of the project is to continue to try and build on legally protected sites. 

You can hear the concern from multiple councillors in the live stream of the meeting at around 15:11 pm including Cllr Scott Payter-Harris, who said:

“This is no longer a decision based upon vision, this is purely a financial decision... they [the options for Tipner] are all quite frankly rubbish, and we are being asked to pick our poison.” 

Rather than producing a workable solution for people and nature at Tipner West, council leaders are settling on what many councillors rightly call a ‘fudge’ and using the council’s perilous financial state to force the hand of the opposition. The plans could still reclaim a so-called ‘minimal’ or ‘moderate’ amount of the protected sites, around 14ha or 25 football pitches worth! 

Council leaders have rashly chosen development principles that give them the wriggle room to destroy nature and have consistently rejected our efforts to warn them of the dangers of this project, including the ‘Portsmouth Precedent’ that would be set. We will now wait to see if the new development proposals breach nature’s red lines as we now expect they might. If that happens, we will be forced once again to ask the public to come together to tell the council #DontGoThere and #DontCrossTheLine.