Bristol City Council’s house building company, Goram Homes, have binned plans for housing on the council-owned section of Western Slopes. However, corporate developer Lovells still have a planning application outstanding on the privately-owned section of the land. This application includes an ecological report prepared by Bath’s Ethos Environmental Planning.

Ethos describe themselves – in purest word salad -,as a “multi-disciplinary environmental planning consultancy providing specialist advice to inform decision making for planning and development”. So does it come as any surprise that Ethos ecologist, Jim Phillips, who’s produced a helpful ecological assessment for Lovell’s at Western Slopes, was found to have breached CIEEM’s (Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management) Code of Professional Conduct?

This was in relation to an ecological assessment he did for a planning application in Crewkerne, Somerset. Phillips, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a useless partially sighted illiterate, only managed to survey a portion of the Crewkerne site. The bit, coincidentally,  that’s not registered as a local wildlife site by Somerset Wildlife Trust. He also forgot to take into account the badger population in the area and didn’t notice a number of ponds and hedgerows on the site.

Now, not dissimilar concerns regarding the quality of Phillips’ efforts for Lovells at Western Slopes are emerging from local campaigners, Bristol Tree Forum and Manor Woods Valley Group.

Of course, any claim that there’s a network of bent ecological consultancies prepared to work for the benefit of corporate property developers with deep pockets would be conspiratorial nonsense wouldn’t it?

Wouldn’t it?