Shaping the Future of Planning in England

RSPB Senior Policy Officer Carl Bunnage brings us up to date with the new Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill and what we need to see it do for nature ... 

Over the coming days the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will resume its passage through Parliament. This will shape the future of the planning system in England, a system that has profound impacts upon nature. 

The Bill was paused in the face of opposition from backbench MPs concerned about the levels of new housing development that it could unleash, particularly on ‘greenfield’ sites.

The UK Government has responded to these concerns by amending its proposals, including by making the setting of central housing targets only ‘advisory’ to local councils, and giving greater propriety to developing on previously-used rather than ‘greenfield’ sites.

However, if the Bill is to be truly fit for purpose to address the nature and climate emergency then the changes need to go much, much, further. Some of the main things we need to see are:

• Proper detail of the UK Government’s proposals to change the planning system in England, and for them to be put to consultation and Parliamentary scrutiny. In many cases the Bill allows the UK Government to make changes without providing the detail of what those changes are and how they will be made. That isn’t good enough.

• The impacts of new development proposals upon nature must be properly assessed and understood before planning permission is granted. This needs robust systems of environmental assessment. However the UK Government is planning to sweep away our current systems and replace them with a new system it hasn’t designed yet. The details of this new system must be published and properly scrutinised in Parliament before being introduced, and they must strengthen rather than weaken the systems that we have in place now.

• Maintaining and levelling-up our system of nature conservation designations, bringing Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) up to the standard of the most highly protected areas, and introducing a new type of designation (Wildbelt) to safeguard land for biodiversity enhancement and nature’s recovery.

• Positive changes to the purposes, powers and operations of our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty to equip them to better work for nature and implement the recommendations of the UK Government’s own Glover Review on the matter.  

• Effective measures put in place to deal with the pollution that new development (alongside existing activities) brings to our rivers and lakes. It is not clear that the UK Government’s proposals to deal with this (called ‘nutrient neutrality’) go far enough and will prevent more damage being done over the coming years.

• Support Sally-Ann Hart MPs proposal to remove a barrier that prevents Mineral Planning Authorities taking action to bring to an end the extraction of peat within England.

• Effective measures to enable financial contributions from developers to mitigate the harmful impacts of their proposals on nature. The UK Government’s current proposals in the Bill will fail to secure this vital source of funding for conservation.

We call upon the UK Government and Parliamentarians to address each of these issues positively.  Only then will we have any hope of our planning system acting to support nature’s recovery rather than undermine it. And without a planning system that gives nature a fair hearing, the UK Government’s aspirations to protect 30% of land for nature by 2030 will be left floundering.