For the uninitiated, one of the most prominent examples of the absurd consequences of the site-by-site approach to environmental mitigations was the construction of a £121 million tunnel on the HS2 line to protect just 300 bats. Another such example is the ‘fish disco’ acoustic deterrent complicating the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Somerset.

Will the bill end this kind of waste? It depends. Until there is an EDP in place for every single species and every single protected site, there will be a risk that the existing system will throw up absurdities like bat tunnels and fish discos. The real danger is that developing EDPs will be harder than expected for some types of species where impacts in location A can’t be offset by mitigations in location B.

To fully solve the problem, the aim must be to get delivery plans in place for as many issues as possible, but there needs to be a backup option for the cases where delivery plans haven’t been agreed and following the status quo is unacceptable.

That’s why Britain Remade thinks there ought to be an additional power for the Secretary of State to authorise new significant development even in the cases where there is no delivery plan in place.

In effect, for a major infrastructure project, the Secretary of State would be able to step in and disapply the Habitats Regulations if they are convinced that following them would require extremely poor value for money mitigations such as bat tunnels.