The Government has put forward a working paper on development and nature recovery which proposes a new approach to using funding from development to deliver environmental improvements, and moves more responsibility for these improvements onto the state rather than developers. The aim is to free up and accelerate development while ensuring better environmental outcomes.
The Housing Forum’s cross sector membership means that we are uniquely placed to bring together those who work within local authority planning departments (officers, and also local councillors), with those who put in planning applications – housebuilders, housing associations and architects. During 2023, we ran a working group on planning which produced two reports on planning (Streamlining-planning and Planning validation requirements). More recently, we have brought our members together to discuss the government’s proposals for planning reform, including these proposals for changes to the way that development funds nature recovery.
Our main points are:
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The Housing Forum appreciates the government’s ambitions to ensure that funding for nature recovery is put to the best use, and that development of much-needed new homes is streamlined.
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Potential benefits of the new approach include a reduced burden on individual reports at site level and improved outcomes for nature via a more strategic approach.
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The risks of the proposed system include a loss of control over how money is spent, causing public distrust in the system, and increased complexity if this new system sits alongside existing site-level provisions, such as biodiversity net gain.
- We see a strong case for a ‘scoping survey’ or similar, to be used on most sites to identify any particularly acute ecological concerns. This would be presented to the planning department and for most sites would be sufficient in terms of surveying, allowing them then to proceed down a fast-track route whereby a payment is taken for any environmental issues to be dealt with strategically. Where the scoping survey identifies significant ecological concerns with the site, the LPA could then request fuller surveys which may require solutions outside of the strategic mechanism.
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