Erin McDaid of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust writes about charities challenge Ministers to fix the Planning Bill to ensure nature doesn’t pay the price

Last week, The Wildlife Trust joined over 30 charities in calling on the Government to make urgent repairs to its the new planning reforms, writes Erin McDaid of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

The Trust and others believe that the reforms fail to deliver the Government’s promise of a ‘win-win’ for nature and development, and instead risk significantly undermining environmental law.

While reform presents an opportunity to improve how development is delivered and to support more strategic nature recovery at scale, as the bill stands, its risks tipping the balance too far in favour of developers and threatens vital wildlife protections.

The coalition of charities has urged the Government to work with us and to support our amendments as the Planning and Infrastructure Bill progresses through committee stage. These would help ensure that planning changes delivers for both nature and for growth.

CEOs from 32 nature organisations, including Craig Bennett of The Wildlife Trusts, have written to Defra Secretary of State Steve Reed and Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, to warn that if the proposed Bill proceeds unchanged, it risks breaking new ground in terms of destroying nature across England.

We have called on Ministers to work with environmental groups to deliver the ‘win-win’ scenario that was originally promised when the Government announced the Bill. We're urging Government to support amendments that protect nature and deliver sustainable development for future generations.

The letter, also signed by Woodland Trust, RSPB, National Trust, WWT, Rivers Trust and Marine Conservation Society, sets out that the proposals, as currently drafted, would weaken environmental law significantly.

The result could be irreversible habitat loss, and more species pushed to the brink of extinction – which in turn would undermine the Government’s ability to meet its legally binding Environment Act targets.

We fear that such a shift in policy could also significantly affect local communities with issues including greater flood risk, loss of much loved woodlands, parks and more sewage in rivers.

As signatories to the letter, we feel that the Bill falls well short of delivering on both nature recovery and responsible development for communities.

It could open the door for developers to effectively disregard environmental rules and the concerns of local communities.

Our most valuable, vulnerable and protected sites for nature, including woodlands, wetlands and heathlands would no longer benefit from the strong safeguards they currently enjoy - leaving them at very real risk of damage and destruction due to the impacts of new development.

As I had previously highlighted, some of the language in the Bill simply isn’t strong enough to deliver the joint aims of better development and more nature recovery.

This is particularly the case in respect of the proposed ‘Environmental Development Plans’ – and if left unchanged, could allow developers to ignore environmental requirements and scientific evidence – while not providing the necessary guarantees that significant work to support nature’s recovery would actually take place.

We are also very concerned that the Bill could significantly weaken Habitat Regulations, the rules that have helped protect our cherished wildlife for decades.

In so doing the Bill risks stripping away vital protections without clear requirements on developers to deliver the nature restoration needed to bring iconic landscapes such as chalk streams, wildflower meadows and ancient woodlands back to life and to protect key species such as dormice and otters or struggling birds and butterflies.

Recent polling found that 71% of Brits support increased planning protections for green and blue spaces, including fields, woodland, community parks, national parks, rivers, lakes and streams – while only 12% think current planning rules go too far in protecting the country’s wildlife and natural spaces.

This data suggests that the Government’s view that nature is a blocker of development is somewhat out of touch

We agree with the Government that it is possible to secure a ‘win-win’ for nature and development but at this stage the Planning Bill is far too one-sided – discarding key environmental protections with little promise of the future nature recovery so vital for thriving, healthy and prosperous communities.

As the Bill moves towards the Committee stage this month, we have reiterated our desire to work with Ministers and the government to get the bill back on course and help to deliver nature recovery and sustainable development hand-in-hand.

Have your say

Alongside the new Bill, the Government is also consulting on a new land use framework that will guide and shape not only how we use our land, but also shape decisions around what development is permitted and how we make more space for nature recovery.

The consultation runs until April 25th and takes about 30-40 minutes to complete — https://consult.defra.gov.uk/land-use-framework/land-use-consultation/.

This is for you to have your say on how we should balance differing land uses such as farming, housing and space for nature.