The Planning and Infrastructure Bill: a trade-off between infrastructure delivery and nature protection?

Jan 8

Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. 53% of our natural biodiversity has been lost since the industrial revolution, a proportion larger than any other G7 country.[1] Species such as the Scottish wildcat, the pine marten, the turtle dove, and the natterjack toad are all on the brink of extinction.[2] As a whole, the average abundance of the UK’s terrestrial and freshwater species has fallen by 19% since 1970.[3] The green and pleasant land of William Blake is fast becoming a biodiversity desert, as animal and plant life disappear from our national landscape.

This frightening reality has not been entirely absent from political debate. In 2020, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson committed to protecting 30% of Britain’s land for nature by 2030; declaring ‘We must act now – right now … because biodiversity loss is happening today and it is happening at a frightening rate. Left unchecked, the consequences will be catastrophic’.[4] Labour has also promised to restore Britain’s biodiversity: ‘The Conservatives have left Britain one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Labour will deliver for nature’ proclaimed their 2024 General Election Manifesto.[5] Yet, this action has not materialised. Just 6% of the UK’s land is effectively protected and well managed for nature, according to research by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, and in England, the proportion alarmingly decreased between 2024 and 2025.[6]

This brings us to the Planning and Infrastructure Act, which received Royal Assent shortly before Christmas. The Act is designed to streamline planning, with the aim to ‘get Britain building again’ and to ‘build, baby, build’, as Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed put it, in rather Trumpian terms.[7] Elements of the Act have proven controversial, particularly Part 3, which relates to the creation of Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs). These plans will be drafted by Natural England to identify the negative environmental effects of a given development, and the according conservation measures required to address them. Developers will be able to apply to pay a ‘nature restoration levy’ in lieu of delivering these conservation improvements directly, allowing them to have lower regard for certain environmental protections within their site. This levy would contribute to a Nature Restoration Fund, which would be used by Natural England to finance the conservation measures identified in the EDP, although crucially, these can be at off-site locations.[8]

The Government argues that these provisions in the Act will accelerate infrastructure delivery, enabling ‘builders to meet their environmental obligations faster’ by replacing ‘time intensive and costly … project-specific interventions’ with ‘larger strategic interventions for nature’. A ‘win-win result[s] for both development and the environment’, as former Secretary of State for Housing Angela Rayner put it.[9] The legislation’s opponents could hardly agree less. ‘A license to destroy nature’ is how the environmentalist and television presenter Chris Packham labelled the Bill. Beccy Speight, CEO of the RSPB, lamented it would ‘rip the heart out of environmental protections’, while prominent columnist George Monbiot called it ‘the worst assault on England’s ecosystems in living memory’.[10] These arguments centre on the premise that ‘irreplaceable’ habitats, such as chalk streams and ancient woodland, could have their existing protections bypassed by the EDP framework, and cannot just be reproduced in another area by a nature restoration fund.[11] Therefore, any development that included the destruction of these features would come at a significant ecological cost.

This debate, infrastructure delivery versus nature, is familiar to those working in renewables. An argument that a solar farm, battery energy storage system, or wind farm should be rejected due to its harm to local habitats and wildlife is something that comes up time and again. A lot of these narratives are disinformation. Intensive agriculture practices that solar farms often supplant are hardly havens for nature, otherwise Britain wouldn’t be faced with such rapid biodiversity decline.[12] While the suggestion that renewable infrastructure shouldn’t be built due to the need to protect a local deer herd, a particularly frequent objection, would be more convincing if Britain’s deer population weren’t at an all-time high and actively harming biodiversity as a whole.[13] Of course, the narrative to pit nature against renewables isn’t entirely without merit. Research suggests that it can take years for soil to recover from the compacting effects of solar panels, with according impacts for the diverse ecosystem the soil supports, and you don’t need to be an ecologist to appreciate that construction would be disruptive for animals living on-site.[14]

The best way to see this debate, and indeed communicate it, is in terms of trade-offs. It goes without saying that animal and plant life would fare better if the land were left dormant, for nature to reclaim. But this is not the alternative. The type of land that solar is suited to, flat fields that sit outside flood zones with good access to road networks, will not suddenly be rewilded if a planning application fails.[15] So, if land is most likely to remain in agricultural use if it is not used for renewables, then this changes the equation. Research has consistently shown that solar farms outperform surrounding arable farmland when it comes to wildlife diversity and frequency.[16] This research should be emphasised when engaging with local communities and political stakeholders about renewable energy projects. It is an important part of the trade-offs framing. Renewable infrastructure is, in general, better for nature than agriculture, and it is certainly better for fighting the climate crisis (which will help protect biodiversity in the long run).

Where does that leave us with the Planning and Infrastructure Act? Well, I would argue that a similar trade-off framing should be applied to this legislation. It is not a ‘win-win’ as Angela Rayner suggested, but the importance of swift infrastructure delivery needs to be balanced with the urgency of nature protection. Of course, the government’s argument for extensive conservation projects over more limited development-specific interventions does have merits. Large-scale rewilding projects have been shown to lead to significant increases in biodiversity. In the case of Carrifan Wildwood, a 660-hectare project to restore native woodland in the Scottish Borders, the number of woodland birds increased 6500% over a ten-year period.[17]

On the flip side, the EDP framework may contribute to a further decline of Britain’s irreplaceable habitats. It is particularly concerning that the UK’s 220 chalk streams, a unique habitat (the UK has 85% of the world’s total) that supports an array of rare animal and plant life, would be at risk of losing their protections.[18] Remarkably, the Bill also doesn’t even have a legal requirement that nature levies need to be spent on nature.[19] This, in my opinion, risks shifting the pendulum too far. We are already living in the midst of an ecological crisis and placing the protections of some of our rarest habitats at risk will likely only exacerbate the situation.

The legislation might have concluded in more of a compromise. There were amendments proposed to ensure protections for the most threatened habitats could not be removed by EDPs while leaving the rest of the legislation intact. Instead, these were voted down, and what we are left with is perhaps not a balanced trade-off. [20] In the most critical interpretation, the Act asks Britain’s already fragile natural environment to bear the cost of efficiency savings that the Government may never materialise. So, while many working in Renewables will have rightfully celebrated the passage of the Bill into statute, it is worth reflecting on the question of whether the undoubted need for new infrastructure, renewable or otherwise, should come at the expense of protections for some of Britain’s last irreplaceable habitats.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/10/nearly-half-of-britains-biodiversity-has-gone-since-industrial-revolution

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/10/nearly-half-of-britains-biodiversity-has-gone-since-industrial-revolution

[3] https://stateofnature.org.uk/#:~:text=The%20UK%2C%20like%20most%20other,nature%2Ddepleted%20countries%20on%20Earth

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-commits-to-protect-30-of-uk-land-in-boost-for-biodiversity

[5]https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf

[6] https://wcl.org.uk/30by30-press-release-2025.asp#:~:text=In%20England%2C%20the%20report%20shows,are%20not%20in%20favourable%20condition.

[7] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckkg2l1rpr4o ; https://www.gov.uk/government/news/housing-secretary-issues-call-to-arms-to-build-baby-build

[8] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/34/enacted

[9] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/planning-proposals-to-unblock-vital-infrastructure-and-drive-natures-recovery

[10] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/chris-packham-interview-nature-restoration-fund-controversy-b2757209.html ; https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/22/wildlife-charities-urge-labour-to-scrap-licence-to-kill-nature-in-planning-bill ; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/24/labour-nature-england-ecosystems-planning-bill-keir-starmer

[11] https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/planning-bill-breaks-labours-nature-promises-say-wildlife-trusts-and-rspb

[12] https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/land-of-plenty.