We have four key workstreams on planning and the environment: Biodiversity Net Gain, Nutrient Neutrality, Nature Recovery and Protected Sites Strategies. We are also looking at how to help councils join this all together to plan for a better environment.
Planning reform, the Environment Act, the Environmental Improvement Plan, and the Government’s broader consideration of land use in England, provide significant opportunities for planning to play a key role in meeting Government’s aspiration to create a better environment for future generations.
And yet we know from our work with Local Planning Authorities (LPAs), that this is a complex agenda requiring integrated, coordinated approaches to achieve multifunctional benefits from the use of land.
As we await further regulations and guidance from Government, we think it is important that LPAs can learn from each other and share their experience of what ‘planning for a better environment’ looks like. Whilst it is still early days, there is a lot of good practice out there. We have pulled together our work to make connections between our various environmental planning work programmes, draw together and share insights and experience from a range of LPAs, and provide a range of tools and products on our Planning for a Better Environment webpages.
PAS has been commissioned by MHCLG and Natural England to support councils on five key work areas relating to planning and the environment:
- Biodiversity Net Gain: supporting local authorities with the implementation of mandatory net gain.
- Nature Recovery: helping local authorities with their delivery nature recovery, including sharing best practice.
- Nutrient Neutrality: supporting local planning authorities in water catchments affected by this issue.
- Protected Sites Strategies: engaging local authorities in the PSS development process as the next tool for nature recovery.
- Environmental Delivery Plans: supporting local authorities who may be affected by this new approach introduced by the Planning and Infrastructure Act.
In addition to the above, PAS did some work in 2022 on Environmental Outcome Reports (EOR) and you can read more about that here. In 2024, we published a Guide to Better Sustainability Appraisal.
Anna Rose in conversation: Anna & Beccy Moberly talk planning for nature (March 2026)
As part of a series of conversations between Anna and the PAS consultants delivering each part of our programme, Beccy (Principal Consultant - Environment) and Anna discuss planning for the natural environment, ranging from biodiversity net gain, Environmental Delivery Plans to Local Nature Recovery and Spatial Development Strategies. They talk about what is coming up and how PAS is supporting local authorities in this space.
ACRONYM BUSTER
There are lots of acronyms around planning and nature. We've aimed to list those brought up in this video in the YouTube description, so hopefully you can follow what we're talking about and look them up if you want more information.
PAS Practitioner Networks and further information
We have practitioner networks for local authority officers interested in:
- BNG, which meets every 6-8 weeks and for which we host an online discussion forum. Please fill out this Microsoft Form if you would like to join.
- Nutrient neutrality, with an online discussion forum and monthly meeting for catchments delivering mitigation solutions. Please email [email protected] to join.
- Nature Network for LPAs - for everything else nature! Please fill out this Microsoft form if you would like to join.
You can also check out the Planning for a Better Environment section of the PAS KHub forum and sign up to the PAS newsletter.
On 2 April 2025, PAS hosted an event for local planning authority members on addressing the nature emergency and you can access a recording and slides on the event webpage.