By Rob Hindle, Rural Solutions
The Planning & Infrastructure Bill aims to ensure that the development of housing and infrastructure make a greater contribution to environmental recovery.
The Bill includes provisions for Natural England to:
- Create a Nature Restoration Fund that will provide an alternative approach for developers to meet environmental obligations relating to protected sites and species
- Acquire and manage land for the purposes of addressing and responding to the impact that development will have on protected sites and species
- Delegate its powers to another party to act on its behalf
- Compulsorily acquire land, or new rights over land, to carry out a ‘conservation measure’
Nature Restoration Fund
Where Natural England (or the Secretary of State) feel there is a case to take strategic action to address the impact that development has on protected sites or species, they can establish an Environmental Development Plan (EDP) which will set out a package of conservation measures to address one or more environmental impacts of development and secure an environmental uplift.
A key difference to the current approach – implemented as the obligation to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain or nutrient neutrality on a site specific basis through the planning system, either by providing an on or off-site solution, or by purchasing credits – is that rather than being limited to addressing the impact of a single development, an EDP will be able to take a more strategic approach to mitigations, pooling resources and maximising outcomes for the environment and secondary benefits like public access to green spaces.
Where a site is within an area covered by an EDP, the developer will pay a defined levy into the Nature Restoration Fund which will be used to finance the delivery of the plan, rather than undertaking their own assessments and delivering site specific interventions.
Acquire and manage
Natural England will be empowered to engage directly in the delivery of the EDP, acting in its own right, in partnership with, or by contracting with relevant third parties.
Natural England are to be given rights to acquire land or establish new rights over land, by compulsory purchase where the Secretary of State agrees such approach is necessary to assemble the area of land needed for individual EDPs.
Compulsory purchase requires the acquiring authority to pay a fair market value. This is assessed at current use value rather than any valuation taking account of the use for which the land is to be put. [Editor’s note: ‘fair market value’ excludes ‘hope value’.]
Practical example
Natural England determines there is an issue with nutrient loading in a river catchment that can be addressed via strategic nature-based solutions, such as re-connecting watercourses with their flood plain and changing the management of key areas of land within a catchment.
Natural England produces an EDP and assembles the land required to deliver the strategic action plan. Natural England may work in partnership with landowners and managers, or it may negotiate to buy land, or acquire the necessary rights over land owned by others in order to deliver the plan.
Natural England then undertakes, or commissions, the delivery of environmental mitigations and nature-based solutions at catchment scale on this land. Developers pay a levy defined by Natural England and do not need to carry out any site-specific assessments or engage directly in any mitigation or remedial action.