Conservation charities have accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of making “misleading” claims that rare spiders had stopped a new town from being built.
Sir Keir has spoken about what he believes is unnecessary “blocking” by regulators and other bodies which he says is holding back housebuilding.
The government has pledged to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years.
He has used the example of Ebbsfleet in Kent, where he said the “dream of home ownership for thousands of families” had been “held back by arachnids”.
A rare species of spider known as the “distinguished jumping spider” was found in the area, which was given environmental protections to restrict building.
Those protections meant 1,300 homes could not be built.
But more than 4,000 homes have been built in other parts of Ebbsfleet and thousands more are planned.
Kent Wildlife Trust has accused Sir Keir of an “oversimplification” and said he has “misrepresented this complex issue”.
The charity is planning to write directly to the prime minister, along with other conservation groups, to complain.
Ebbsfleet Garden City has been under development since 2015 and is being built across 2,500 acres of brownfield land in the Thames Estuary.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, Sir Keir said the project was to “build more than 15,000 new homes” with a “17-minute commute into central London”.
He wrote that the previous government had bought 125 hectares of former industrial land and quarries to build homes on, but the plan had been “blocked by Natural England” due to “the discovery of a colony of ‘distinguished jumping spiders'”.
He added: “It’s nonsense. And we’ll stop it.”
In a speech in Hull later the same day, Sir Keir appeared to refer to Ebbsfleet again, saying that “jumping spiders” had stopped “an entire new town”.
He added: “I’ve not made that example up, it’s where we’ve got to.”
Conservation charities say that characterisation is wrong.
Natural England declared the Swanscombe Pensinsula, where around 1,300 of Ebbsfleet’s homes were planned, as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in March 2021.
It is one of just two sites in the UK which are home to the distinguished jumping spider.
The tiny creatures are just millimetres in size and thrive in rubble and post-industrial environments .
It is understood Sir Keir was using the example to make a broad point but conservation charities have expressed disappointment at his apparent lack of accuracy.
Jamie Robins, from the charity Bugslife, said: “Making false claims about critically endangered jumping spiders stopping ‘an entire new town’ is misleading and incorrect.”
He said it “undermines public confidence in the vital protections and binding commitments that we have for nature and the role of Natural England in helping it to thrive”.
Emma Waller, from Kent Wildlife Trust, said: “All of the SSSI, including where the 1,300 [homes] were planned, are vital habitats that we simply cannot afford to lose.”
“We must move beyond the narrative of ‘nature versus growth.’ Sustainable development, which respects and integrates the natural environment, benefits both people and wildlife.”
A spokesperson for the RSPB added: “Time and again we’re hearing about places the prime minister is happy to concrete over, yet silence on the habitats that must be protected from development”.
In a statement, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “We need to go further and faster to remove regulations blocking the planning system, holding back growth, and ultimately preventing people from realising the dream of home ownership.
“That is why we are reforming the planning system as we deliver on our mandate to build 1.5 million homes this parliament, which is central to our Plan for Change.”
