“Very limited” evidence in Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s Impact Assessment to say nature holding back development
Government has finally published the Impact Assessments for the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
The Impact Assessment, written with a focus primarily on development, is worryingly light on impact on nature. The main focus from a nature perspective is on nutrient neutrality.
The document says: “There is very limited data on how environmental obligations affect development. This makes reaching a robust estimate of the impacts associated with the NRF [Nature Restoration Fund], which will streamline the process for discharging environmental obligations, very challenging.”
In acknowledging that there is little actual evidence that environmental considerations are a barrier to development, Government therefore cannot assess the impacts of the Bill’s provisions on, for example, species conservation.
It therefore also cannot properly assess the extent to which a new Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) approach will streamline the development process or what impact the NRF would or could have on nature recovery.
The assessment of the impacts on SMEs looks solely through the lens of the developer/planner SME community and completely ignores and undervalues the ecological and environmental consultancy community.
The statements in the Impact Assessment mount further pressure on the Government that it needs to rethink the Planning and Infrastructure Bill if it truly wants to unlock the barriers to development (hint: it isn’t nature) and if it is serious about nature recovery.