Bath and North-East Somerset council is currently (2025) led by The Liberal Democrats Party. On the 23rd July 2020 the Council declared an ‘Ecological Emergency‘ for the Bath and North-East Somerset Area.

Just 33 days later, in the first test of this policy, the same Councillors voted to destroy the Tufa Field. Despite continued pressure and attempts to influence decision makers, the Main Council and the Planning committee paid no heed to their own declaration, and in the end politics and self-interest won out over ecology and the environment.

The disconnect between declared policy and actions goes further. Here’s the council complaining the Government is going to override it’s commitment to green spaces.

Councillors slam government’s proposed changes to planning system

Since that declaration, successive decisions and actions have underlined that the Ecological Emergency has never been taken seriously, with continuing loss of green spaces, biodiversity and a noticeable decline in once common species, including bats, slow worms and hedgehogs across the authority area.

The move to smaller and smaller areas and concentrations of species has put immense pressure on all of our wildlife and much of our local flora. History will eventually know where to ascribe blame for these actions against the Earth.

Next