As the year rolls to its end, so too does the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. After nine months of intense debate, this legislation – and the planning changes it embodies – will become law, almost certainly by Christmas. 

The Bill has always meant bad news for the natural world. It allows effective rules for managing the impacts of development on key nature sites to be replaced by an Environmental Delivery Plan (EDP), a substitute geared towards the developer with a reduced focus on ‘avoiding harm’ to wildlife than before. This largely unproven, risky new system could fail nature - a bad move, especially at a time when wild spaces are deteriorating and wild species declining. 

There is one consolation to cheer the wintery prospect of these changes passing into law: thanks to the efforts of the nature-loving public and the hard work of many MPs and peers, the scale of the risk this Bill poses to nature has at least reduced. It is worth reflecting in more detail on how these changes were achieved, especially as rumours circulate about a second Planning Bill planned for 2026.  

This breached Labour’s pre-election promise to ‘work in partnership with civil society to restore the natural world’ if elected.  

The Wildlife Trusts escalated and launched our ‘broken promises’ campaign, alongside RSPB, to call the Government out on this and to highlight that, in refusing to change the Bill, Ministers risked devastating nature. Thousands more supporters got behind us.  

Finally, as summer reached its height, it seemed the Government had started to listen. On 17 July MHCLG tabled a raft of changes to Part 3, the section of the Bill covering EDPs, including the legal test, evidence and sequencing safeguards that MPs had earlier argued for. The amendments applied to each EDP stage - from evidence and sequencing requirements for plan makers, to drafted plans having to pass a ‘material environmental improvement’ test before being applied, through to reporting requirements to fix problems should EDPs fail to deliver as intended for nature.  

The Office for Environmental Protection assessed the MHCLG amendments and concluded: ‘The amendments the Government now proposes substantially allay our concerns. We are clear that even after the material amendments the Government proposes, the Bill would, in some respects, lower environmental protection on the face of the law. In the round, however, the additional safeguards proposed today make Government’s intended “win-win” for nature and the economy a more likely prospect’. 

So – progress, of sorts, but still a clear weakening of environmental protections. The Wildlife Trusts kept working. 

The Bill progressed to the House of Lords - and gained key amendments

The Bill was now in the House of Lords and so we armed peers with a series of briefings to expose the risk that EDPs could still provide cover for widespread harm to nature. Peers for the Planet, the cross-party environmental group in the Lords, came together to press for an innovative solution. Four peers, Baroness Willis of Summertown, Lord Roborough, Baroness Young of Old Scone and Baroness Grender tabled amendment 130, designed to limit EDPs to managing water and air quality impacts from development. This would have limited EDPs to the two areas where the evidence shows that the EDP approach can work well, and ruling out others where un-evidenced application could spell disaster for sensitive sites and species.  

The Wildlife Trusts joined forces with other environmental groups, including RSPB and Wildlife & Countryside Link, to ask peers to rally behind the amendment at Lords report stage. Peers did just that, voting to add amendment 130 into the Bill on 29 October by a majority of over a hundred.  

The closing Lords stages saw two other important steps forward. Baroness Parminter and Baroness Grender secured Ministerial agreement to bring forward regulations setting out how EDPs must prioritise the avoidance of wildlife harms, and the Lords voted to protect chalk streams. 

Building on work by MPs in the Commons, the Bishop of Norwich led cross-party efforts in the Lords to add protections for these wildlife-rich but threatened freshwaters to the Bill. The House was convinced by the Bishop’s argument that, as planning decisions threatened chalk streams, specific planning protections for chalk streams are needed. Amendment 94 on chalk streams was duly voted into the Bill.  

Nature-protecting amendments were stripped back out of the Bill - but there were some concessions

November saw an all-out effort to persuade the Government to keep amendments 130 and 94 in the Bill. Over just a few short weeks, more than 40,000 Wildlife Trust supporters wrote to their MP, urging them to speak up for the amendments. 

Many MPs did just that in a Commons debate on 13 November that was dominated by concerns about wildlife. Ultimately though Ministers, using the power of the Government’s huge Commons majority, were able to strip both amendments out of the Bill.  

However, pressure from the public and MPs, taken up and effectively applied by peers saw final concessions wrung out of Ministers, including a promise that the first Environmental Delivery Plan will concern water pollution only, along with a commitment that any EPDs in other areas will be preceded by a Commons statement presenting the evidence for it. Promises have also made to consult on new chalk streams planning protections by the end of the year, and to include chalk stream recovery measures in the forthcoming Water White Paper. 

And with that, barring a few final i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill now passes from Westminster and onto the statue book. Over the months ahead, we will be keeping a close eye on the Government’s next steps, to hold them to account on all of the promises and concessions and to ensure that the first EDPs do deliver the promised win for wildlife. 

What have we learnt from the past nine months?  

Firstly that the public are more than willing and prepared to stand up for nature, in huge numbers. Secondly that Parliament contains MPs and peers, including those mentioned above and many others, who understand that nature is not a “blocker” to growth, but necessary for everyone. 

The Wildlife Trusts are hugely grateful to every person who took action and we thank every Parliamentarian who spoke up. Together, these efforts have certainly reduced the risks the Bill poses to nature.  

In these learnings is a key lesson for the UK Government 

The past seven months have seen Ministers engage in a bitter, unnecessary trench warfare with environmental groups, parliamentarians and also the voting public. This conflict has been waged over policies to weaken environmental protections, taken forward in the apparent belief that sacrificing nature will somehow conjure up growth. This magical thinking has so far conjured up only economic uncertainty, environmental risk and public anger.   

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are reportedly calling for fresh planning legislation next year, to further weaken key environmental protections. It’s all rather reminiscent of First World War generals ordering another big push. Another charge over the top, regardless of how the last one went. For what gain? A promise of more pointless fighting and destruction, all to try and vindicate a strategy that has already failed.   

Surveying the aftermath of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill - the uncertainty affecting housing, the nature loving voters alienated, the wildlife threatened with extinction – one question remains: does this Government really want to do it all over again?