Dr Ada Lee is the Policy Specialist for the RTPI. She leads on the Institute’s work on infrastructure planning and climate change.
Trade-offs between nature and economic growth are becoming a hot topic amid the immense pressure to build. Bats, newts and nature are set against people, houses and infrastructure. This narrative is unnecessary. With good planning, we can have it all.
The RTPI today responded to the government’s planning reform working paper on development and nature recovery. In it, MHCLG and Defra are suggesting a ‘new approach that would use funding from development to deliver environmental improvements at scale’. In a nutshell, the Government’s ambition is to move towards a more strategic, outcome-focused approach towards nature recovery.
The proposal ties in well with the long-awaited Land Use Framework consultation announced today. Central to the working paper is the establishment of a Nature Restoration Fund, where developers will pay into and the state will coordinate the delivery of mitigation actions identified as necessary. This will involve the preparation of ‘Delivery Plans’ by a ‘delivery body’, who will assess the underlying environmental issues and set out actions necessary to deal with the associated environmental impacts. Natural England has been named as a possible delivery body.
The working paper also signals this government is continuing with the work on Environmental Outcomes Report – a proposal that the RTPI have expressed deep concerns over when the last government consulted on this in 2023.
For the current proposal, the RTPI strongly support a strategic approach towards nature recovery. The Government’s proposal to mitigate environmental impact at a larger-than-local scale is very much welcomed. However, for the plan to achieve its full potential, we feel that several issues will need further clarification. These include:
- How the Delivery Plans will connect with Local Plans and existing and emerging Spatial Development Strategies
- The safeguards that will be in place to make sure existing successful local mitigation measures will not be
- How the underlying resourcing and capability challenges will be addressed. Both the latest MHCLG survey on local authority planning capacity and skills and RTPI research (State of the Profession 2023 and our BNG survey) show that there is lack of ecological expertise within local authorities – either in the form of the availability of ecologists or ecological knowledge amongst planners. Any reforms to nature recovery will first have to address this resource and capacity issue.
More broadly, we think Local Nature Recovery Strategies provide an excellent basis to address environmental concerns at a larger-than-local scale. However, as previously suggested by the RTPI, LNRS can be expanded to coherently cover the whole environment (including for example water, flooding, soil and air quality) and evolve into Local Environment Improvement Plans. This will be a departure from the current siloed approach to environment, with about a dozen spatial instruments and plans each addressing a disparate part of the environment.
In the long run, there should be integration between LNRS and the Land Use Framework.
As we discussed in our policy briefing that calls for a National Spatial Framework for England, we can in fact have it all – from clean energy infrastructure and housebuilding and nature. The key is effective land use coordination. Planners are ready to take on this challenge: all they need are the appropriate tools to work with.
