SERA recommendations to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
Ensuring the Planning and Infrastructure Bill supports growth, people and nature.
Context
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB) offers a key opportunity to speed up development while improving outcomes for nature. Labour’s Environment Campaign – SERA supports the aims of the bill. We desperately need new housing and infrastructure, and we support the government in its work to ensure this is built at the speed and volume needed.
However, we do have concerns that – wholly wrongly – the protection of our natural environment is being pitted against this need for development.
Part III of the Bill aims to promote a more strategic planning approach for nature, moving away from the current site-specific outcome model to Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs), designed and implemented by Natural England.
The Corry Review into environmental regulation acknowledged there are opportunities to reform environmental regulations to deliver faster and better outcomes. The Review recommended proportionate changes to the Habitats Regulations and their guidance - rules that protect species and sites from development harm.
Improvements to the Bill
The government and MHCLG have made it clear that their intent is for the PIB to lead to improved outcomes for nature, restoration at a strategic scale and wider and better public access to green spaces. The government should take confidence from the findings of the Corry Review and its case for proportionate changes to environmental regulations that improve outcomes for development and for nature.
However, concerns have been raised from across the sector that the removal of existing protections in Part III of the PIB risks worsening outcomes. Both conservation NGOs and major developers and consultancies, often painted as in opposition, are voicing these concerns. For many developers and business leaders, natural capital is seen as critical to their business models.
The public is also increasingly aware of the PIB, largely through the communication efforts of conservation NGOs. Voters across all divides view threats to nature extremely unfavourably, especially in their local area.
Regardless of intent, as Part III is currently drafted, there is a risk that the opportunity for halting nature decline and protecting and enhancing local green space is lost. Strengthening nature provisions within the Bill could reduce this risk, while opening the door to wider reform of the Habitats Regulations that could improve outcomes for ethical developers.
Some amendments to the Bill from NGOs are attempting to maintain the existing set of protections. However, these amendments would create additional complexity for developers.
We believe the following improvements could help bridge the gap between environmental NGOs and developers, leading to a better outcome for both development and nature:
- Stage the rollout of EDPs
- Protect emerging nature markets
- Reform the Habitats Regulations alongside the Bill
- Ring-fence the Nature Restoration Fund
- Work with the Land Use Framework and Local Nature Recovery Strategies
Key recommendations
1. Stage the rollout of EDPs
Developers are clear that EDPs could be transformative in unblocking development that causes nutrient pollution on protected sites or is problematic for water scarcity. There is good evidence that this approach could work.
However, it is unlikely that this approach can be taken across all environmental features, e.g. some protected species like barn owls or otters cannot be easily translocated and are dependent on specific sites.
Currently, the Bill enables Natural England to apply an EDP to any environmental feature. Natural England at Committee Stage indicated that it will not do so, and will begin the rollout of EDPs with nutrient pollution and water scarcity.
This ambiguity over future EDPs creates uncertainty and concern that the system could become extremely complex. Larger developers have indicated this could be a serious issue, while NGOs are concerned that a rapid and widescale rollout of EDPs could cause irreversible loss.
Defining a clear set of use cases for EDPs at the outset (ideally contained to overcoming the currently challenging areas of nutrient neutrality, water scarcity and recreation) would reduce ambiguity for developers and provide the opportunity for testing of a wider range of EDP use cases that could be added through secondary legislation on an iterative basis. This would also allow Natural England the space to scale up and develop its own processes, avoiding the delays seen with other bodies such as the Building Safety Regulator.
If coupled with the proposed changes to the Habitats Regulations (set out at item three below), this could have the impact of both bolstering protection and speeding up development. This would support the government’s goals for both ambitious economic growth and a housebuilding revolution while also ensuring that nature remains protected and accessible to all.
2. Protect emerging nature markets, especially Biodiversity Net Gain
Across the UK, private investors and businesses are working with farmers, local authorities, and environmental groups to create nature recovery projects that attract private investment - without relying on public funding. These schemes are helping to diversify the incomes of farms and NGOs and will increasingly contribute to growth across the UK.
Of these, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) stands out as the most advanced, with millions already invested in site acquisition and units already being traded to enable development. Many BNG providers are non-profits with a commitment to providing local nature-rich spaces accessible to those impacted by developments, and BNG metrics weighted towards local habitat creation.
Part III of the Bill, as drafted, could seriously harm these early-stage efforts by allowing EDPs to critically undermine and crowd out the investment case for nature in the UK. The Levy approach effectively flips the BNG approach (which is now widely viewed as positive) on its head – moving away from on-site mitigation and the use of the private market to deliver solutions.
The Bill should ensure that EDPs act as a backstop – only used where private markets are unable to provide viable, demonstrable solutions.
3. Reform the Habitats Regulations alongside the Bill
Compared to other jurisdictions within the European Union, the UK is conservative in how it implements Habitats Regulations. Many planning lawyers, developers, ecologists, and campaigners support these regulations in general but agree that they could be improved (as per the recommendations of the Corry Review). This is important because EDPs will not be applicable to all developments – for example, they are unlikely to be workable for one-off energy and infrastructure projects or for all protected species. It is for these cases that the Habitats Regulations could be made more workable and proportionate.
To ensure ‘buy-in’, this should be done in the spirit of co-creation with interested organisations. At this stage, the government could simply signal its commitment to the regulations, alongside its intent to review them in line with the Corry Review, which would be in keeping with the Defra Secretary of State’s intended ‘rolling’ approach to regulatory reform.
4. Ring-Fence the Nature Restoration Fund and EDPs
Delivery of EDPs and the Nature Restoration Fund will significantly increase the responsibility and capacity of Natural England, and comes on top of a broad range of existing agency priorities. Given that EDPs will seek to reinstate biodiversity lost to development, levy funds raised toward this should be ringfenced and not be transferable to other priorities.
5. Work with Land Use Framework and Local Nature Recovery Strategies
The PIB - and EDPs in particular - present the opportunity for strategic delivery that builds on the progress that has been made on nature recovery mapping and understanding of land use.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS), produced over the last two years, have involved widespread research and local consultation and identify clear opportunities for landscape recovery. The recently published Land Use Framework is a welcome response to the critical need for a strategic approach. Placing a requirement on Natural England to use these tools as the basis for EDP development will ensure joined-up thinking and restoration that matches local needs.
Conclusion
The PIB has the potential to unlock huge economic growth in the UK and provide the infrastructure needed to power Britain’s ambition to become a green energy superpower. It could also ensure that much-needed homes are built at the scale and speed needed to tackle the housing crisis. Labour’s Environment Campaign – SERA remain excited about the potential of this bill to deliver real change.
The ambitions the government has for the PIB and the ambitions SERA and our members have for the protection, restoration and celebration of nature are sometimes wrongly seen as in opposition. This could not be further from the truth.
The measures we have set out in this briefing paper demonstrate a way of strengthening the PIB that improves growth, protects nature and works for conservationists and developers; planners and farmers; and most importantly for voters.