MHCLG and Defra invited feedback on proposals to use funding from development to deliver environmental improvements. The proposals were issued on 15 December 2024 with a closing date of 21February 2025.
About the Local Government Association (LGA)
(a) The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We are a politically-led, cross party membership organisation, representing councils from England and Wales.
(b) Our role is to support, promote and improve local government, and raise national awareness of the work of councils. Our ultimate ambition is to support councils to deliver local solutions to national problems.
(c) This response is not confidential.
In principle, the proposal to develop a single strategic assessment and delivery plan for nature recovery in protected areas could lead to better outcomes than the current system, which places the responsibility on individual local planning authorities. A strategic approach could reduce pressure on the short supply of technical expertise, which the LGA highlighted as a barrier to tackling nutrient neutrality in the Stuck in neutral report. The report set out the findings of the LGA’s Inquiry into water and nutrient neutrality, including a call for a catchment level approach to improving water quality.
We need to understand how the proposals would affect the significant investment that councils have already made in creating wetlands and other schemes to allow new homes to be built. Councils could be exposed to significant financial risk if they no longer have a mechanism to recoup the cost of substantial upfront investment.
The proposals do not have much to say on how the plans would be funded, and this needs more clarity. There may be additional expectations of local planning authorities, for example to provide data and resources, and we are keen to understand how that would be resourced.
Natural England is well placed to take forward delivery plans. We need clarity on their role, and ideally this would make them partners in the plan rather than placing them automatically as the delivery body. We would be happy to work with government and Natural England to develop a process to allow councils to lead strategic plans, where councils wish to do this.
Response to specific questions
a. Do you consider this approach would be likely to provide tangible improvements to the developer experience while supporting nature recovery?
Developers may prefer to deal with one strategic plan rather than individual local planning authorities. However, the payment to discharge Habitat Regulation Act (HRA) obligations would be an extra charge on top of other development costs such as Section 106 obligations, plus the administrative cost of the plan. We need to understand the cut-off point where development would not be viable due to the added overhead costs.
There is a risk that the strategic nature recovery plan would become another layer of administration on top of development management.
b. Which environmental obligations do you feel are most suited to this proposed model, and at what geographic scale?
it is a sensible approach to dealing with habitat regulations for nutrient and water neutrality, and on that geographic scale the challenge will be to balance catchment geographies with administrative geographies and the need for a national Natural England to have delivery plans relevant to local places.
c. How if at all could the process of developing a Delivery Plan be improved to ensure confidence that they will deliver the necessary outcomes for nature?
Delivery plans need to be transparent and accountable, with enforcement as an option to deal with non-compliance. If Natural England is to take a strategic lead, their role should include an expectation that they will involve the local authorities in determining the location and type of mitigating actions set out in delivery plans.
Whichever organisation takes on the role of developing a delivery plan, it will need to be properly resourced. We are concerned about the capacity of Natural England, if the role falls to them.
Delivery plans may benefit from additional powers, for example to require data and co-operation from private organisations such as water companies.
d. Are there any additional specific safeguards you would want to see to ensure environmental protections and / or a streamlined developer experience?
We are concerned that Nature England could end up as both the delivery body for the plan and the environmental regulator. This would be a clear conflict of interest.
e. Do you support a continued role for third parties such as habitat banks and land managers in supplying nature services as part of Delivery Plans?
In principle we support this, but we are concerned about the impact of Delivery Plans on emerging private finance market for nature recovery and biodiversity net gain.
g. Are there any other matters that you think we should be aware of if these proposals were to be taken forward, in particular to ensure they provide benefits for development and the environment as early as possible.
We need clarity on how the proposals would relate to other plans and frameworks, for example local nature recovery strategies, and the national land use framework.