Government planning reforms to protect nature

January 23, 2025

News that the Government has warned that the planning system must protect nature, as it unveils reforms

Partner Alison Ogley, Freeths commented:

“This is a potential game changer addressing the current inertia in the system, providing a solution that is more effective than individual developers trying to address environmental improvements on a project by project basis. A central fund will be better placed to tackle environmental improvements on a strategic level. The devil as ever will be in the detail. One of the major issues will be the efficient and effective operation of the central fund – it will need to be properly resourced and accountable to both developers who pay into it and other stakeholders”.

Partner Penny Simpson, Freeths added:

“The Working Paper is a really welcome move by Government seeking to ease the development process whilst delivering benefits for nature. Twinned with Keir Starmer’s announcement of changes to the legal challenge (judicial review) process, Government is clearly making efforts to unlock development. We have already seen this type of strategic approach to addressing developers’ impacts work well within certain existing protected species protection legal regimes (e.g. the Naturespace Great Crested Newt District Licensing regime). The proposed system could work well for specific and commonly encountered impacts on European sites such as nutrients or recreational impacts, where there is clarity and agreement over the measurement of the impacts and ways of offsetting them. There are likely to be more difficulties in using this sort of system for less commonly encountered and more complex impacts, for example from large infrastructure NSIPs. More thought needs to be given to a strategic approach which could make a genuine difference to NSIPs.“

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