A few weeks ago I wrote about the worrying decline of Hampshire’s wildlife.

Over the next 20 years we may see the complete extinction in the county of many iconic species such as cuckoo, hedgehog, brown hare and turtle dove.

I spoke about the numerous reasons-from climate change to hunting and from dogs off leads to deer grazing.

But the largest threat in this county has been from housing development.

If planners have their way we may see up to 100,000 homes built across the south of the county between now and 2036.

That is the equivalent of two new cities the size of Southampton and Portsmouth combined.

No one genuinely expects that aspirational target to be met-but the counties fields and woodlands are under pressure like never before.

Having said that there is some really good news filtering out of parliament.

Michael Gove announced this week that he would be pressing for legislation that ensured all new housing had a “biodiversity net gain”.

What does that mean?

Currently when a developer builds on land he has to offset some of the loss of land or wildlife by giving money to support community, nature or local access schemes.

Many housing schemes though, give scant regard to the biodiversity loss. Rarely are housing estates better for nature after the development than before.

And the larger the scheme, the less likely there are to be any benefits for nature.

But that could all be set to change.

If Gove gets the new legislation through, any new development will have to prove that in building the new houses there are more opportunities for nature than before the development took place.

In other words a legal connection is being made between delivering new houses and allowing space for wildlife to thrive inside the new development.

In practice that could mean we will see wildflower meadows, wildlife ponds, hedgehog boxes, house martin boxes and swift bricks, new woodland areas, wildlife trails, composting areas and fruit growing.

At a time when there seems to be so much to be concerned about-it is reassuring to know that there are ideas on the table that could in theory transform our relationship with land.

Yes we know that new housing is needed, but we also know that nature is in real trouble.

So if it is genuinely possible to build houses and positively impact nature then that is surely a good thing.