On 15 December, the government published the Planning Reform Working Paper: Development and Nature Recovery, inviting views on proposals for “a new approach to how housing and infrastructure development can meet its environmental obligations and contribute to nature recovery”. It reflects that the government is “committed to getting Britain building again” with a target of 1.5m homes before the next general election.
What steps are proposed in relation to environmental impact?
The steps to be taken in relation to environmental impact will include a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan to allow the development of a new, statutory plan to protect and restore the natural environment at the scale and pace that the government believes is needed.
The focus will include:
- cleaning up waterways;
- reducing waste across the economy;
- planting millions more trees;
- improving air quality;
- creating nature rich habitat; and
- halting the decline in species by 2030.
While the government will not reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in existing law, it believes “it is necessary to revise environmental legislation to establish the proposed new approach” and will make targeted amendments to legislation to deliver improved environmental outcomes, which will be supported by the new framework of environmental outcomes reports.
What are the government’s main objectives?
Its main objectives are to:
- take a holistic view of nature recovery to secure better environmental outcomes;
- go beyond offsetting environmental impacts and instead use development to deliver positive outcomes for nature recovery;
- improve efficiency and reduce duplication to ensure every pound spent helps deliver our environmental goals;
- make it far easier for developers to discharge a range of environmental obligations, and provide the legal certainty necessary to underpin substantial capital investment;
- give delivery partners the tools they need to generate positive outcomes for nature, empowering them to make the right choices to deliver nature recovery;
- establish a robust and transparent framework to monitor delivery of environmental outcomes; and
- create a lasting legacy of environmental improvement that will promote better public health through increased access to high quality green spaces
What steps does it want to take to meet its objectives?
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will provide the necessary legislative underpinning, including:
- Moving responsibility for identifying actions to address environmental impacts away from multiple project-specific assessments in an area to a single strategic assessment and delivery plan. This will allow action to address environmental impacts from development to be taken strategically, at an appropriate geographic scale, rather than at the level of an individual project – while recognising the importance of protecting local communities’ access to nature and green space.
- Moving more responsibility for planning and implementing these strategic actions onto the state, delivered through organisations with the right expertise and with the necessary flexibility to take actions that most effectively deliver positive outcomes for nature.
- In turn, allowing impacts to be dealt with strategically in exchange for a financial payment that helps fund strategic actions, so development can proceed more quickly. Project-level environmental assessments are then limited only to those harms not dealt with strategically.
The latter of these steps will be of particular interest to housebuilders who have had to engage with the requirement to achieve nutrient neutrality over the past five years. Under the new approach, the secretary of state will be able to determine that a delivery plan for nutrient mitigation, operating at catchment scale, would be more effective than current measures.
This will mean that planning applications will not have to consider the impact of nutrient pollution in their Habitats Regulations assessment and developers may instead pay a contribution to a nature restoration fund prior to commencing development, and the fund will pay for the implementation of measures identified in the delivery plan by a delivery body.
Certainty and consistency
There is no doubt that the piecemeal approach to nature recovery objectives, and the need to achieve nutrient neutrality in particular, has been extremely unsatisfactory to all involved and created real uncertainty for those seeking to deliver housing in those places where it is most needed. While frustrating for developers, our team’s experience is that they have been sensitive to the underlying environmental issues. However, a sentiment consistently expressed by developers, both in relation to environmental issues and the planning system in general, is that certainty and consistency of policy and approach are key to enabling ambitious housing delivery figures to be met while having full regard to the relevant issues. On the face of it, the three key steps proposed by the government will go some way to addressing these concerns. For nutrient neutrality in particular, a strategic approach will be particularly welcome.
Click here to read and respond to the working paper >>
Christian Silk is a planning and environment partner at Osborne Clarke
Photo © Shutterstock
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