Taking on the Nimbys, or government striking a blow against people power?

For Rachel Reeves, it is all about the bats.  

“There’s always a reason not to invest," she says despairingly. "Always a reason not to build. There’s bats and newts; it might add something to carbon emissions in 20 years' time; it may make the view from my house a little bit less nice."

The Chancellor was making a barbed reference to the infamous tunnel of netting built over the HS2 line in Buckinghamshire, built at a cost of £100 million to protect a colony of bats from fast-moving trains. This week she joined the Prime Minister in a declaration of war on the 'blockers' who frustrate major development schemes.

Sir Keir said in future opponents of major infrastructure projects will have fewer chances to 'frustrate growth', saying he would end a 'challenge culture'.

“We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the Nimbys and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation."

The problem for Sir Keir and Miss Reeves is that one person's Nimby is another person's environmentalist, community volunteer, local councillor, or concerned resident.

For example, advocates of the Shrewsbury North West Relief Road will hope the announcement means there will finally be some movement on the long-running saga. But the 109,000 people who signed the petition to save the 550-year-old Darwin Oak tree, which is threatened by the scheme, may take a different view. 

Gordon Fanthom is a long-serving parish councillor in the village of Swindon, near Dudley. At the moment he is fighting to stop the construction of two battery energy storage sites in the area, which he believes will present a fire risk. He fears the Government is mounting an attack on local democracy and accountability.

"At the moment we have planning inspectorates over-riding local planning departments, over decisions that have been made by councillors who are elected by local people to represent them," he says.

While the latest changes are aimed more at major infrastructure projects such as nuclear power plants, roads, wind farms and solar farms, they form part of a wider direction of travel which will tilt the balance more in favour of developers, and away from campaigners.

Last month Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced new housing targets, which would require Shropshire Council to find land for 1,994 extra homes each year, while Dudley Council will need to find sites for 1,462.

Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Council, accused the Government of wanting to 'decimate the green belt', saying the target represented a 122 per cent increase in the number of homes the authority would be required to find space for.

"It’s a slap in the face for those who campaigned so hard to protect our green belt and green spaces," he said, warning that sites in Halesowen, Kingswinford and Stourbridge would be at particular risk. 

"Labour have effectively served a death sentence on green belt and green spaces," he said.

Similarly, in Shropshire, the news will strike fear into campaigners trying to stop 3,000 new homes being built on land owned by Bradford Estates at Tong, near Albrighton.

And Mrs Rayner's declared aim of “unblocking the clogged-up” system, by-passing local planning committees, will do little to calm nerves of people living around the Seven Cornfields, a green wedge of farmland which separates Wolverhampton and Dudley.

"They want to build all over the green belt," says Mr Fanthom, who questions how the Government will square its plans to accelerate development with its commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

"At the moment we have got Angela Rayner wanting to build 1.5 million new houses, but they can't do that because they have signed up to the net zero legislation," he says.

"If you build 8,000 new houses in a field, you have got two layers of carbon: first, all the pollution while the houses are being built, and then you have got 8,000 new gas fires, 8,000 new boilers, 8,000 new computers, and three cars for every house."

No. 10 says the changes will prevent 'cynical' or 'hopeless' cases causing delays and increasing the cost of infrastructure projects. At the moment opponents have three opportunities to secure permission for a judicial review against a major infrastructure project – firstly by writing to the High Court, then in an oral hearing and finally by asking the Court of Appeal.

But under plans announced by the Prime Minister yesterday, the written stage will be scrapped and any cases deemed 'totally without merit' will be unable to ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider.

The Government says these changes will prevent 'cynical' or 'hopeless' cases causing delays and increasing the cost of infrastructure projects.

It is not hard to sympathise with the Government's frustration. When the London & Birmingham Railway was granted permission to build a line between the two cities in 1833, it was up and running within five years. By contrast, HS2 Ltd was set up in 2009 to build a new line between the same two cities, and the first trains will not run until 2029 at the earliest, with 2033 seen as a more realistic timescale.

But the other side of this coin is the fear that developers will be able to ride roughshod over people's very genuine concerns about the areas in which they live. The Government may also find itself on a collision course with many Labour MPs who now represent constituencies in the green belt.

Sir Keir will need to tread a very fine line indeed.