Planning and Infrastructure Bill
In 2025, the Wildlife Trusts and other environmental organisations became increasingly concerned about the risks to wildlife posed by rollbacks in environmental safeguards.
The UK Government has been considering new legislation related to the planning system, including a new Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The Bill aims to help development, like housebuilding, happen faster.
Some of the Bill’s contents appear to be informed by unfounded claims from senior government ministers that wildlife such as snails, bats and newts are ‘blockers’ to development.
After going back and forth between the House of Commons and the House of Lords this summer and autumn, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is now almost law. Without key protections for our wildlife in the new Bill, Norfolk’s nationally and globally important wildlife sites - including chalk streams, wildflower meadows, and ancient woodlands – could be under threat.
We need homes for people, but destroying homes for wildlife isn’t the way to do it. This is our last chance to protect wildlife from the worst impacts of the new laws.
Ask your MP to keep wildlife-friendly amendments in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill
What is happening right now?
After going back and forth between the House of Commons and the House of Lords this summer and autumn, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is now almost law – but without key protections that the House of Lords have supported, it could be disastrous for wildlife and wild places.
We need MPs in the House of Commons to back the recent changes suggested by the House of Lords. Though MPs have so far rejected the changes, there’s still time to influence your MP and make a difference.
What we have achieved so far
Thanks to everyone who took part in previous campaigns to reduce the risks the Planning and Infrastructure Bill poses to nature so far.
We are making progress – your voice really does make a difference!
In response to huge pressure this summer, the Government amended the Bill to add some environmental safeguards in July.
In October, the Lords voted to add important protections for chalk streams to the Bill (amendment 94). Crucially, the Lords also voted to back what is called ‘amendment 130’, which would prevent the most damaging part of the Bill - Part 3 - applying in areas where it could hurt wildlife.
What has Norfolk Wildlife Trust being doing to-date?
Despite the Government promising a ‘win-win’ for development and the environment, early readings of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill suggested otherwise. They appeared to strip away environmental protections and remove requirements for developers to avoid harming nature.
Working alongside The Wildlife Trusts
We have been working alongside The Wildlife Trusts nationally to submit evidence and make recommendations to the committee reviewing the Bill, to try and make nature’s voice heard in the decision-making. We are pushing for the Government to improve protections for chalk streams, local wildlife sites and create wildbelts, to protect land that is supporting nature’s recovery.
- You can read the latest government briefings document here.
- We also sent a briefing to all of Norfolk’s MPs during the Committee and Report Stages of the Bill.
The committee submitted a draft of the Bill to the government to review but unfortunately the Bill was passed at Report Stage without any of our amendments, so then progressed to The Lords.
Working with the House of Lords
We have been working with members of the House of Lords to try to make sure that the crucial protections for nature which are so desperately needed are included within the Bill. In particular, we’ve been supporting the Bishop of Norwich, who submitted an amendment seeking to gain further protections for our precious chalk streams. In good news, this was successfully passed in the House of Lords – but we now need MPs to support this change.
An open letter to the Deputy Prime Minister
In May 2025, we sent an open letter to Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to ask that our government create a Bill that will help recover nature so that everyone can benefit from a flourishing natural world.
22,000 people signed it nationally, including thousands from the Eastern Region, adding their voices to the "nature vs development" debate.
Eden Jackson
Nature is not a ‘blocker’
We must stand firm. Nature is the source of our security and prosperity.
The Wildlife Trusts’ own research examined 17,433 planning appeal decisions made in 2024. Overall, bats and great crested newts were a relevant factor in just 3% of appeals.