The Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill currently going through Parliament represents the biggest threat to our nature laws for over a generation. It comes off the back of the Prime Minister’s repeated attacks on nature as the blocker to new housing and economic growth. But the Prime Minister is wrong. Our natural world underpins every element of our economy and, if we want long-term sustainable growth, we must invest in nature.
A recent poll showed that 71% of the UK supports increased planning protections for green and blue spaces, including woodland, parks and rivers, but the Government’s bill will act against the public interest by weakening protections and fast-tracking nature’s decline. We know that for a thriving economy we need a thriving natural world, but Keir Starmer is bizarrely pushing a false choice between protecting nature or building houses. At least Defra has ignored the PM’s divisive rhetoric, and Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has promised a win-win for housebuilders and nature. Yet despite this, the bill as currently drafted still represents a lose-lose.
It’s bad for nature, because as currently proposed, the so-called “Nature Restoration Fund” would do no such thing. The bill would mean that protections for species such as bats and otters could be disregarded by developers in exchange for a fee. This system is designed to rush through development, not restore nature.
It’s also bad for developers, forcing them to pay the levy even if they would rather create habitats on site. This makes consultation with the local community over the environmental impacts of the development more difficult, because instead of engaging on how to deal with the issues onsite, the developer can only say they have paid into a fund which has little or no relevance to the local area.
The Government is playing fast and loose with the ecosystems on which we all depend, and is rushing through a piece of legislation and a levy system without any pilot schemes or evidence of its effectiveness. This disregard for the precautionary principle is worryingly reflected in the conclusions of the recent Corry Review into environmental regulation, saying Defra is too risk averse and too influenced by the “long-entrenched precautionary principle.” Given that the point of the precautionary principle is to prevent environmental harm, one would hope it is entrenched in our environmental regulations. It is clear from the direction of this Government is to deliver growth at any cost, even if that is to detriment of the long-term health of our planet.
If the Planning and Infrastructure Bill goes through without changes, Norfolk's wildlife will face even greater threats. For example, under the proposed Bill, the impacts the Norwich Western Link road posed to wildlife wouldn’t have held the weight that they did last year and the road might have gone ahead – replacing vital ancient woodland with saplings, chasing the last vestiges of rare bat colonies from our county and putting a wide array of other wildlife living in the Wensum Valley in harm’s way on a daily basis. Damaging developments like this will be far more likely to get planning permission without due consideration for their real impacts on our natural environment. To fast-track development, a ‘pay now, think later’ approach would become the norm – seeing high quality, vital, wildlife habitat disappear across our county in favour of pale imitations elsewhere, which just won’t provide the homes our wildlife desperately need.
Good government brings people together, but this Government’s characterisation of nature as a blocker to development simply divides.
As currently drafted, the bill represents a loss for nature and a loss for forward-thinking developers. It should be pushing up the standards of all developments, not driving them down to match the worst. We need sustainable development that goes hand-in-hand with nature, not a new law that accelerates its decline.
We have a window of opportunity to encourage our MPs to make changes to the draft Planning and Infrastructure Bill in its current form. From 22 April, for one month, the Bill will be debated by MPs as they consider evidence and discuss proposed amendments. During the coming month, we’ll be speaking up for Norfolk’s wildlife and we urge you to join us.