We work closely with developers and planners to try and secure better outcomes for wildlife through the planning system. We’re certainly not anti-development ‘blockers’ as some would try and suggest. Working with local councils, we’ve championed nature-positive planning policy and collaborated on green space design and improvements in nature-friendly development for decades. Yes, we vigorously defend nature where significant harm is likely but we also work collaboratively with developers, keen to secure better outcomes for wildlife, society and economic growth in harmony. We firmly believe that nature underpins the economy and that nature’s recovery is essential for an economically secure and sustainable future.

Like many others, we welcomed the news that the Government intended to reform the planning system with a positive view to achieving a win-win for housebuilding and nature. The system can certainly be improved in terms of its environmental outcomes. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, currently passing through Parliament, is the bill seeking to enact those reforms and so is critical to nature’s recovery across the country.

Despite this, we were horrified to see that part three of the bill contains dangerous opportunities for developers to sidestep existing legislation that is central to protecting our most precious designated sites and protected species. It sets out mechanisms that would effectively allow developers to destroy some sorts of site-based wildlife (habitats and species known as ‘features’ in the Bill) and, instead, simply pay money into a Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) purporting to benefit these features elsewhere. As it is currently worded, the Bill could be the most dangerous assault on protected sites and species legislation in a generation.

More positively, money gathered through the Nature Restoration Fund would be spent on strategic habitat restoration guided by Environmental Delivery Plans (‘EDPs’ -  developed by Natural England), designed to focus conservation effort for the relevant features in the ‘best’ places for nature. A strategic approach like this can have merit but only under closely controlled conditions, where it is underpinned by robust science and appropriate safeguards to avoid unintended harm. To be effective in delivering nature’s recovery it must also maintain current protection for important sites and species and ensure that benefits are delivered before losses occur. None of these safeguards are in place in the bill at present.

At a time when one in six species in Britain are threatened with extinction it cannot be right to legislate for further losses while leaving nature’s recovery to risky chance, especially when Natural England, the body expected to be responsible for EDPs, lacks the necessary resources to deliver robust and positive outcomes.

The simple truth is that if we can’t fix the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, nature will suffer. We are therefore part of a broad coalition of environmental organisations, representing over nine million people, asking the Government to either pause or make very significant amendments to the bill as it proceeds through parliament. We are asking for four things to be made absolutely clear in the Bill so that this vital legislation is fit for its intended purpose.

1. That damage to protected sites and species should only be allowed where there is overriding public interest in allowing development (as is the case today). Natural England must be certain that all possible steps have been taken to avoid harm to nature before developers can pay into the NRF and use the EDP approach instead.
2. That benefits to nature must substantially outweigh harm caused. The overall test in the Bill must be that measures in the EDPs ‘will’ deliver improvements and not that they are ‘likely to’ as the bill suggests now. There should be a toughening of measures to ‘significantly and measurably’ outweigh the negative effect of development and the aim must be to achieve a significant environmental improvement.
3. That delivery of benefits in terms of habitat creation or wildlife population increases must be up-front (i.e. before harm is caused by the relevant development) with a clear schedule for improvements to features set out in the EDPs. Without this there is a real risk that mitigation would only occur long after the damage is done, spelling disaster for habitats and species populations.
4. That features must only be included in EDPs where there is clear evidence that the strategic approach to their conservation will be effective.  

The Wildlife Trusts are asking for amendments to be made to the Bill as it passes through parliament to deliver on these key issues. We will keep you informed as the Bill progresses.