Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust: King’s speech gives some hope drive to ‘get Britain building’ won’t derail nature recovery

Since pretty much the first moments of the new government, it has been crystal clear that reforming the planning system to address the housing crisis would be among their top priorities, writes Erin McDaid of the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

Early speeches and statements signalled that ‘getting Britain building’ was right at the top of the new government’s ‘to do’ list and that they intend to do this at pace.

Whilst a commitment to getting things done fast can be seen as a positive, doing things at pace and doing them well can be a difficult balance to strike — especially when it comes to reforming something as contentious and complex as the planning system.

Politicians weighing up priorities often consider the views of ‘stakeholders’ — and when it comes to planning, the number of influential stakeholders, with sometimes conflicting and even diametrically opposed views, can make driving forward change whilst securing consensus well-nigh impossible. The housebuilding lobby is a hugely effective machine, but as we saw when the last government sought to deliver fundamental changes to the planning system, local politicians involved in making planning decisions are not backwards at coming forward to prevent change if they feel it will water down their opportunity to influence decisions. The environmental sector — which includes groups such as Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust — continues to grow and is more willing to make its voice head than ever, as demonstrated by the mobilisation of 60,000 people on the Restore Nature Now March to Parliament Square last month.

Making significant changes to such a complex system quickly risks costly mistakes that could undermine local democracy, threatened wildlife habitats and halt efforts to restore nature. In their manifesto, Labour promised to build new homes in a nature friendly way and whilst detail on how this will be achieved is still thin on the ground, the recent King’s Speech gave more insight and a bit more detail — and perhaps even room for cautious optimism.

The full text and briefing notes contains a commitment to strengthening the capacity of local planning authorities — something we have long called for; a determination to use development to fund nature recovery and to “only act in legislation where we (The Government) can confirm to Parliament that the steps we are taking will deliver positive environmental outcomes”. The speech also sets out the Government’s commitment to ‘working with nature delivery organisations, stakeholders and the sector over the summer to determine the best way forward.’ Dialogue that we expect and look forward to being part of.

While these reassurances are welcome, there is still a long way to go. As the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill, announced alongside legislation to improve water quality by strengthen the powers of the water regulator and to set up Great British Energy — a publicly owned clean power company — takes shape, The Wildlife Trusts will work to ensure that key habitats, and the planning rules that protect them, are retained and strengthened. We'll also push for more space to be created for nature by integrating nature into the design of new developments through features such as swift bricks, hedgehog highways and tree lines street.

A reformed planning system must also support the delivery of new Local Nature Recovery Strategies and all new development should deliver a third green cover and ensure everyone lives within a 15-minute walk, wheel or cycle from a green space. Our national ambitions for nature recovery should be raised by increasing the percentage Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) which developments should seek to achieve for nature (currently at 10%) and by extending the BNG requirement to all developments including national infrastructure projects.

To underpin the reforms and to ensure the government doesn’t exacerbate one crisis whilst trying to tackle another, the government needs a Land Use Framework setting out how all land is to be used across the nation. This is vital to help them meet their legally binding targets and international commitments on nature recovery and climate change, whilst ensuring society has the housing, food, water, energy, transport and business it needs.

To read more about the reforms The Wildlife Trust feel is necessary to put nature into recovery visit wildlifetrusts.org/blog