The park planning committee ruled that the reed bed filtration system and organic garden installed by Roundhouse owners Tony Wrench and Jane Faith had replaced undisturbed semi-natural vegetation, endangering protected species such as dormice and bats.
This decision is the latest twist in Tony Wrench’s ten-year battle for retrospective planning permission, and a test case for Pembrokeshire county council’s radical new planning policy. Introduced last year, this policy grants planning permission to low-impact developments (LIDs) that meet stringent sustainability criteria.
Campaigners for self-sufficient housing have responded to the decision with dismay. In a letter to the park authority, ecological designer Mark Fisher accused them of having ”double standards”, arguing that: “I don’t see the national park using ecological surveys to condemn the broadscale agricultural practices that go in the park.” He said that this landmark decision showed that: “any genuine attempt at integrating human existence with wild nature” will “be stamped on by whatever means.”
This article first appeared in the Ecologist July 2007
