(c) Adrian Thomas (rspb-images.com)
This is the fifth in a series of seven blog posts covering our asks in several environmental areas for the 25 Year Environment Plan (25YEP) refresh (also known as the Environmental Improvement Plan, or EIP) in January 2023. In this post, written by Carl Bunnage (senior policy officer) and Meera Inglis (policy officer), we cover the main RSPB asks affecting the English planning system.
The positive ambition initially expressed in the 25YEP seems to have been abandoned. It’s crucial to keep nature’s recovery central to the planning system in the 25YEP refresh and avoid mechanisms that weaken nature protect.
Since the publication of the 25 Year Environment Plan (25YEP) in 2018, we have seen some positive steps being taken towards the creation of nature-friendly national planning policies (for example in relation to Biodiversity Net Gain) but also some regressive ones (for example, expanded Permitted Development Regulations). Proposals within the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, and more recently announcements around proposed “investment zones” and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, risk seriously undermining the positive steps forward.
What does the overall picture look like, and should we be concerned about what this all means for nature?
The 25YEP promised to maintain and strengthen any environmental protections already enshrined in national planning policy. It aimed to achieve this by implementing measures such as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and by taking actions such as enhancing Green Belt land, as well as introducing new policy influencing tools such as Local Nature Recovery Strategies that could support the planning process.
What has been achieved?
With the passing of the Environment Act in 2021 came some promising developments; for example, mandating a requirement for the delivery of BNG by November 2023 and therefore going beyond the ‘encouragement’ of the use of BNG within the National Planning Policy Framework. Species conservation strategies included in the Environment Act also build on the district level licensing approach for great crested newts. These provisions are expected to be commenced in autumn 2022.
However, despite the 25YEP’s promise to strengthen environmental protections, the reality on the ground is that existing protections have felt vulnerable to weakening: the increase in permitted development is one example of where planning policy is reducing environmental protections; and the proposed move to a new system of environmental assessment (replacing Strategic Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment) is another. There has also been no improvement in the ability to plan strategically across local authority boundaries on geographies that better reflect those at which ecological systems operate.
These issues are being exacerbated by the Westminster Government’s latest proposals to weaken environmental protections; potentially abandon BNG; and introducing Investment Zones which promise a “liberalised planning process”. It is difficult to see how such liberalisation would not further weaken the protections that we have, especially when the Government’s guidance for the preparation of Expressions of Interest for Investment Zones strangely fails to refer to the existence of nature conservation designations as being a reason to consider any potential site as unsuitable for an IZ.
What do we want to see next?
In the upcoming refresh of the 25YEP, the Westminster Government has an opportunity to reconsider its current direction of travel and recommit to the laudable goals that it outlined back in 2018. The RSPB has the following ‘top 5’ asks with regards to the sections on planning:
We want to see...
The 25YEP plan, just four years ago, brought a sense of optimism that the need to reverse nature’s freefall decline had been recognised by the Westminster Government, and that positive steps were being proposed to begin to address it. Since then, some good progress has been made. However, its latest proposals seem to have abandoned the positive ambition of the 25YEP, and any associated sense of optimism is now declining rapidly, unfortunately like so much of our amazing wildlife.
The Westminster Government needs to make sure its 25YEP refresh keeps nature’s recovery central to the planning system and avoids introducing mechanisms that weaken protections in this critical decade for wildlife.
If you haven’t already, consider contacting your MP about the proposed Investment Zones and insist that they should not permit damage to the natural environment or weaken key protections. #AttackOnNature