The federal government yesterday (on 8 Might) tabled a brand new modification to the Planning and Infrastructure Invoice which specialists warn will additional undermine environmental protections.
Launched earlier this yr, the flagship legislative proposal goals to expedite the planning course of for brand new developments in England.
Nevertheless, scores of environmental NGOs and public and parliamentary our bodies – together with the Workplace for Environmental Safety and the Environmental Audit Committee, have strongly cautioned that, in its present type, the Invoice threatens to severely compromise environmental safeguards and will result in important, everlasting biodiversity loss.
The most recent modification, launched by Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook, seeks to delay the analysis of conservation measures designed to compensate for the environmental impacts of improvement. These measures function the important thing benchmarks in opposition to which the federal government’s Environmental Supply Plans (EDPs) are assessed — referred to as the ‘general enchancment check’.
In response, specialists have warned that such delays might end in appreciable environmental hurt earlier than mitigation measures can take impact, doubtlessly inflicting irreversible injury to wildlife and habitats throughout the nation.
Commenting on the modification, Jason Reeves, Head of Coverage on the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Administration (CIEEM), mentioned:
“This new modification does nothing to strengthen the check of enchancment, and in impact — truly delays the measure of the check 10 years into the long run, whereas what we actually want is for nature enhancements to be in place forward of impacts — in any other case we shall be operating a nature deficit and exacerbating nature’s decline.
“CIEEM is happy to see that the Authorities is open to amending the Invoice. Nevertheless, this is not going to allay considerations that the Authorities is placing improvement forward of nature restoration, making a mockery of statements that the Invoice is a win-win for improvement and nature.”
The Institute has additionally proposed a lot of amendments to the Invoice, which it asserts would considerably enhance outcomes for nature with out hindering improvement.
