Representatives of 34 UK nature organisations have signed a letter with recommendations for the bill
The planning bill environmental impact letter highlights several issues with the current bill.
It states that despite the government’s stated commitment to helping nature and housebuilding, the current legislation would instead weaken environmental law.
The current planning bill environmental impact risks habitats and protection targets
The letter can be read in full below:
Dear Mr Pennycook and Mr Reed,
We were pleased when you told us you were “determined to transform the [planning] system to ensure a win-win for housebuilding and nature” and that Government would “only legislate if we are confident that it achieves these outcomes.” We have been grateful for discussions with you and your teams to identify these win-wins and we continue to believe that success is possible.
However, as it stands, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would weaken environmental law, risk local species extinction and irreversible habitat loss, and jeopardise delivery of the Government’s legally-binding Environment Act targets. Part 3 of the Bill dismantles essential protection for wildlife without the scientific safeguards, the delivery guarantees, or the positive plans for nature recovery that could justify such serious risks.
Environmental Delivery Plans could allow damaging development to disregard environmental requirements without proper scientific foundations, without any attempt to avoid harm, and without any guarantee that measures will be delivered before significant or irreversible harm takes place.
The overall improvement test relies on a weak promise that measures are “likely” to deliver benefits.
The requirement for benefits to outweigh harm could allow wafer-thin promises of nature restoration to justify damage to chalk streams, wildflower meadows, ancient woodlands and wildlife.
In short, the text of the bill is a world away from a “win” for nature. It poses great risks and offers faint hope of benefits. Nevertheless, we believe that a win-win is possible if immediate action is taken. The following amendments will be required as a first step to achieving this and we hope you will make them during Committee Stage:
(1) Apply the mitigation hierarchy at plan and project level: require Natural England to be satisfied developers have avoided harm where possible before taking the EDP approach and damage to protected sites and species should only be for overriding public interest where no alternatives are available.
(2) Follow scientific evidence: with a requirement that new protected features should only be included when there is clear evidence that strategic approaches are effective
(3) Deliver benefits upfront as standard and always in the case of irreversible and significant damage: with a transparent schedule of improvements included in the EDP
(4) Ensure benefits substantially outweigh harm: reinforcing the overall improvement test so that measures “will” deliver improvements (rather than be “likely” to) and so that there is “significant and measurable” improvement.
These changes would help set the bill back on course to deliver nature recovery and sustainable development hand-in-hand.
To justify major changes to planning law, your ambition for the bill should not simply be to scrape by in offsetting harm to nature. It should be to improve the process so that it helps fix the underlying issues—pollution in rivers, habitats in neglected condition, the wildlife populations teetering on the brink of extinction. The Bill needs more detail and more certainty that tangible environmental improvement is required, with a robust and scientific process for avoiding harm. That would speed up development as well as bring our natural environment back to life.
We know you are committed to a collaborative, cross-departmental process. We hope you will work with us during Committee to get the bill back on track, so that it really can help deliver public expectations that nature recovery and sustainable development go hand-in-hand.
Yours sincerely,
Beccy Speight, CEO, RSPB
Craig Bennett, CEO, The Wildlife Trusts
Harry Bowell, Director of Land and Nature, The National Trust
Darren Moorcroft, CEO The Woodland Trust
Nida Al-Fulaij, CEO, Peoples Trust for Endangered Species
Sally Haynes, CEO, Chartered Institute of Ecology & Environmental Management
Dr Tony Gent, CEO, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Andy Lester, Head of Conservation, A Rocha UK
Kit Stoner, CEO, Bat Conservation Trust
Kyle Lischak, Head of UK, ClientEarth
Dr Ruth Tingay, Director, Wild Justice
Kathy Wormald, CEO, Froglife
Hazel Norman, CEO, British Ecological Society
David Balharry, CEO, John Muir Trust
Sarah Fowler, CEO, WWT
Sandra King, CEO, The Beaver Trust
Will Travers, CEO, Born Free Foundation
Dr Rose O’Neill, CEO, Campaign for National Parks
James Wallace, CEO, River Action
Nick Measham, CEO, WildFish
Mike Childs, Head of Science, Policy and Research, Friends of the Earth
Rick Hebditch, Coordinator, The Better Planning Coalition
Sandy Luk, CEO, Marine Conservation Society
Fay Vass, CEO, British Hedgehog Preservation Society
Prof Jeremy Biggs, CEO, Freshwater Habitats Trust
Kate Ashbrook, General Secretary, Open Spaces Society
Rosie Pearson, Chair, Community Planning Alliance
Sue Sayer MBE, Director, Seal Research Trust
Mark Lloyd, CEO, The Rivers Trust
Jenny Hawley, Policy Manager, Plantlife
Paul Coulson FIFM, CEO, Institute of Fisheries Management
Craig Macadam, Conservation Director, Buglife
Anthony Field, Head of Compassion in World Farming UK
Richard Benwell, CEO, Wildlife & Countryside Link
Craig Bennett has spoken about housebuilding previously
Craig Bennett, CEO of the Wildlife Trusts and one of the first signatories of the letter criticising the planning bill environmental impact, has criticised UK housebuilders in a controversial manner, calling them “very bad” at building houses.
Bennett said: “There’s planning permission today for a million new houses, so why aren’t they being built? Why is it that volume housebuilders in this country are actually very bad at building houses, even when they’ve got planning permission?”
He went on to accuse large housebuilding firms of buying and holding land, then waiting for prices to inflate to make a larger profit.
Housebuilders rebuffed the claims
Sean Keyes, CEO of Sutcliffe, said: “British housebuilders consistently deliver a diverse range of high-quality homes tailored to meet various budgets, and customer confidence remains high. In contrast to Craig Bennet’s suggestion, there is absolutely no reason preventing engineers and developers from building new houses, except an extended planning process that significantly delays new projects.
“That said, despite concerns about perceived reductions in new-build quality, UK housebuilding standards remain extremely high. As a business that constructs 8,000 homes each year, I firmly believe that UK housebuilders are among the global leaders – with the highest standard of house construction in Europe, far from being labelled as ‘very bad’.”
Steve Turner, executive director of the Home Builders Federation, said: “Housebuilders deliver a range of high-quality, environmentally friendly house types to meet all budgets, and customer satisfaction levels are at an all-time high. The myth of land banking has been demolished time and again by independent experts. Housebuilders’ only return on investment is selling homes, and having purchased land and navigated the costly and bureaucratic planning process, there is absolutely no reason not to build and sell.”
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