Planning and Infrastructure Bill threatens to bulldoze nature protections

Updated: 28 May 2025

Shortly after last July’s election, Ministers in England talked about transforming the planning systems in a way that would be a “win-win for housebuilding and nature”. Now the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is passing through Parliament, it’s clear that what’s currently proposed is far from that, with nature, and our National Parks certainly on course to lose.  

Whilst the National Parks planning protections remain unscathed, Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill sets out the biggest change to nature law in England for decades. If enacted, it would fundamentally weaken the laws protecting sites (including SSSIs, sites protected under the Habitats Directive, Ramsar sites) and species (such as bats, newts, wild birds and water voles). For National Parks and National Landscapes, this is critical – because these contain over half of England’s protected sites. What’s proposed threatens to bulldoze through protected sites law in place to safeguard England’s most special and important nature sites including the special areas of conservation in the New Forest, the Broads, Exmoor Heaths, Bassenthwaite Lake and Borrowdale temperate rainforest (in the Lake District) and Dartmoor’s woods and heath.  

Currently, the law requires developers to avoid these places as the default, only moving to mitigation and compensation in very restricted circumstances. The proposals in the Bill flips this principle on its head, enabling developers to pay into a “Nature Restoration Fund” administered by Natural England to contribute to ‘overall improvement’ of the protected site. The developer can then crack on and build, and it’s then up to Natural England to deliver the offset “improvement” at some unspecified point in the future. Whilst this may speed up development, there’s real concern that any ‘restoration’ or ‘improvement’ is not possible under various constraints in the model, including the fact that Natural England will be legally required to ensure that any levy paid does not make the development unviable, and the “overall improvement test” inherent in the model relies on a weak promise that measures are “likely” to deliver benefits.

These concerns are not just being raised by organisations like ourselves. In fact the government’s own Office for Environmental Protection has warned Ministers that the new Bill has fewer protections for nature than under existing law.

If the suggested proposals in the Bill go ahead then the new law could be used to justify damage to some of the most precious nature sites within our National Parks: glacial lakes, wetlands, chalk streams, heathland and ancient woodlands. What’s more, despite the fact that almost a third of all protected sites impacted by the proposals are within National Parks, it is unclear what role National Park Authorities and National Park management plans will play in delivery of any of the proposals.  

Working with Wildlife and Countryside Link and other organisations we’ve warned Ministers that the existing Bill would dismantle essential protections for wildlife and habitats, weaken environmental law, risk species extinction and irreversible habitat loss. Over the last few months we’ve proposed changes to ensure the Bill works for nature, communities, and developers, but the government have so far refused to take these on board. Time is running out.

The Bill returns to the House of Commons in June for all MPs to have their say and we are calling on them, and the Government, to support priority amendments that will safeguard nature in National Parks and across the whole of England. We are asking our supporters to demand the same from their local MPs. And if changes aren’t brought forward the Bill must be paused until these problems can be fixed and nature properly protected