Charities accuse Starmer of misleading spider claims

Conservation charities person accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of making "misleading" claims that uncommon spiders had stopped a caller municipality from being built.

Sir Keir has spoken astir what helium believes is unnecessary "blocking" by regulators and different bodies which helium says is holding backmost housebuilding.

The authorities has pledged to physique 1.5 cardinal homes implicit the adjacent 5 years.

He has utilized the illustration of Ebbsfleet successful Kent, wherever helium said the "dream of location ownership for thousands of families" had been "held backmost by arachnids".

A uncommon taxon of spider known arsenic the "distinguished jumping spider" was recovered successful the area, which was fixed biology protections to restrict building.

Those protections meant 1,300 homes could not beryllium built.

But much than 4,000 homes person been built successful different parts of Ebbsfleet and thousands much are planned.

Kent Wildlife Trust has accused Sir Keir of an "oversimplification" and said helium has "misrepresented this analyzable issue".

The foundation is readying to constitute straight to the premier minister, on with different conservation groups, to complain.

Ebbsfleet Garden City has been nether improvement since 2015 and is being built crossed 2,500 acres of brownfield onshore successful the Thames Estuary.

Writing successful the Daily Telegraph connected Thursday, Sir Keir said the task was to "build much than 15,000 caller homes" with a "17-minute commute into cardinal London".

He wrote that the erstwhile authorities had bought 125 hectares of erstwhile concern onshore and quarries to physique homes on, but the program had been "blocked by Natural England" owed to "the find of a colony of 'distinguished jumping spiders'".

He added: "It's nonsense. And we'll halt it."

In a code successful Hull aboriginal the aforesaid day, Sir Keir appeared to notation to Ebbsfleet again, saying that "jumping spiders" had stopped "an full caller town".

He added: "I've not made that illustration up, it's wherever we've got to."

Conservation charities accidental that characterisation is wrong.

Natural England declared the Swanscombe Pensinsula, wherever astir 1,300 of Ebbsfleet's homes were planned, arsenic a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) successful March 2021.

It is 1 of conscionable 2 sites successful the UK which are location to the distinguished jumping spider.

The tiny creatures are conscionable millimetres successful size and thrive successful rubble and post-industrial environments .

It is understood Sir Keir was utilizing the illustration to marque a wide constituent but conservation charities person expressed disappointment astatine his evident deficiency of accuracy.

Jamie Robins, from the foundation Bugslife, said: "Making mendacious claims astir critically endangered jumping spiders stopping 'an full caller town' is misleading and incorrect."

He said it "undermines nationalist assurance successful the captious protections and binding commitments that we person for quality and the relation of Natural England successful helping it to thrive".

Emma Waller, from Kent Wildlife Trust, said: "All of the SSSI, including wherever the 1,300 [homes] were planned, are captious habitats that we simply cannot spend to lose."

"We indispensable determination beyond the communicative of 'nature versus growth.' Sustainable development, which respects and integrates the earthy environment, benefits some radical and wildlife."

A spokesperson for the RSPB added: "Time and again we're proceeding astir places the premier curate is blessed to factual over, yet soundlessness connected the habitats that indispensable beryllium protected from development".