The Nature Restoration Fund: a change in approach to environmental conservation and development

The UK housing crisis is driven by various factors including high demand, limited supply, and a history of government interventions to sustain prices. 

‘Unblocking’ development is seen as a crucial step towards improving affordability and accessibility in the housing market. In this briefing, Alex Ground and Alex Wright outline how the PIB plans to support this through faster planning approvals, reduced bureaucratic hurdles, and the introduction of the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF), amongst other levers involving national space strategies, infrastructure facilitation and reducing scope for challenge.

The NRF is designed to reform the current system where environmental harm caused by proposed developments can either preclude projects or require modifications/mitigation which can make a development unworkable or unviable. Instead, the NRF allows payment into a fund which is used to support an Environmental Delivery Plan (EPD) for a specific site or wider area which is then run by Natural England (NE) to deliver environmental recovery and long-term improvements. Where an EDP is put in place, it will replace the requirements under (i) the Habitats Regulations for assessing the impact of any project on significant nature protection sites by way of an appropriate assessment, and (ii) the Wildlife Countryside Act which requires various licences for protected species and sites. The proposal is also intended to cover nutrient neutrality and water stress impacts which might otherwise stymy development.

EDPs will be drawn up by NE, although discretion will be afforded to NE as to whether an EDP is appropriate for an area. The EDP will be drawn up where overall improvement and recovery will be sought instead of mitigating the harms from a specific development on a specific habitat/species. The purpose of this mechanism is to streamline the mitigation process and allow development, although note that EPDs will not override all environmental protections. The relevant EDPs will set out exactly how much payment of the levy will cost through charging schedules. The cost will vary depending on the nature and size of the development, with the charging schedules bespoke to each EDP.

Concerns have been raised by environmentalists about the risks of environmental degradation and centralising impact assessments with the result that delicate and localised ecosystems may be lost in favour of larger and more measurable environmental improvement. Developers have also expressed concern that there may be uncertainty in new levy payments. These might prove more complicated than the current system, which although complex has become navigable with experience.

Tony Juniper, the chair of NE, however, sees this new system as an opportunity "to take a large-scale view of the landscape, not just the nature that’s affected where the houses have been built, but to look at the effects on the wider environment, including protected areas that might be quite far away. […] Moving to much more strategic approaches whereby we can get our arms around these bigger landscape pressures, that’s key."