Adders and slowworms will be among the animals given extra protection under the government’s plans to “streamline” the process of protecting nature-rich areas.

George Eustice, the environment secretary, said he plans to further protect brownfields and urban sites as he scraps Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Protected Areas (SPA), to replace them with a streamlined system.

Speaking at the annual reception of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Environment in Parliament, the minister said most of the animals protected by the current rules, which stop most development and protect areas from neglect, are those which are rare in the EU. Eustice said this excluded certain species, such as pit vipers and slowworms, which are common in some EU countries but rare in England.

Eustice said the UK’s exit from the EU meant England would be able to adapt protections to its native wildlife. “The designations we currently have for species are in the annex to the Habitats Directive,” he said. “These are basically built around EU-wide endangered species. And so that doesn’t include, for example, things like the viper or the slowworms, species that are probably under a lot of pressure nationally.

“And maybe we should do more for them, but at the moment they’re not protected in the same way, because they have habitats elsewhere in the EU, and we probably have to rethink what we’re trying. to protect and why we do it.

Many animals, such as slow worms, lizards, adders, and rare types of insects thrive in urban areas and brownfield sites, which are often targeted for development. Eustice said the new designations will likely include some of them, as many animals that depend on brownfields are at risk of extinction.

He said: “Burrowfield sites are important for slow worms in particular, and even bats. Often some of these abandoned brownfields can be quite a rich habitat. So it’s a bit of a paradox in that we often say we want to build on brownfields and not on virgin wastelands, but paradoxically some of these abandoned brownfields… have more to offer in terms of ecology than they do. a wasteland that has been cultivated.

Those being looked at include former mining areas, he said, adding: “You have these sites that have been abandoned for about 50 years and often they become quite special habitat.”

While those words are likely to be welcomed by conservation charities, some worry that the current system is under-resourced, with SSSIs and SPAs falling into disrepair. This raises questions about how any expansion of an already underfunded regime would work.

Nature charities are currently working on their response to government plans to reform these protections. Basically, they argue that more funding is needed.

The RSPB is working alongside other conservation groups to formulate a response. A spokesperson said: “It was found that approximately half of our SSSIs and SPAs had not been monitored for more than six years, and many of those monitored are in bad condition. Thus, any review of these sites must be accompanied by a commitment to quality.

“What matters is that we protect the best places for nature wherever they are – and above all that we manage them properly because neglect is the biggest problem these sites have today.”

Eustice said SPAs and SSSIs are a “confusing set of designations.” “What has happened over the years is that the areas are doubly designated. Sometimes we designated a SAC and found that we didn’t have the authority to manage it, so we designated it twice as SSSI. We need much more areas dedicated to specific sites, we need to streamline the process.

Natural England, the government body that runs these sites, has been underfunded for years, with conservation charities warning that it is overwhelmed and unable to run the current sites, let alone create and maintain them. maintain new ones.

The agency’s budget has been cut by more than half in a decade, from £242m in 2009-10 to £100m for 2017-18. Staff numbers were reduced from 2,500 to around 1,500. This, insiders said at the time, made it very difficult to monitor and manage protected areas.

However, it received a 47% funding boost last year, and environmental newspaper Ends Report said on Monday another funding boost was on the way.