The Westminster Government has proposed new wording to the draft Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB) - which aims to update planning rules in England - that could threaten rivers, lakes and coasts. The changes are around 'nutrient neutrality' and would require local Councils, when assessing planning applications, to ignore the pollution development would cause.
This will lead to even more pollutants entering our rivers and other habitats, more risks of damage to vulnerable wild places, and even more wildlife threatened with extinction.
As well as posing catastrophic impacts for the natural world, the changes also:
📣 Go against the 2019 manifesto the Government was voted in on, which stated the UK would have 'the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth' and pledged to "make ours the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it"
🐝 Undermine the UK Government’s legally binding commitment to halt species decline by 2030, set out in the Environment Act in England in November 2022
🌳 Ignore the Global Biodiversity Framework signed at COP15 in December, which committed the UK to a range of biodiversity targets, including a pledge to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030
There has been criticism from many places, including from the independent Office of Environmental Protection (OEP), which was set up in 2021 to advise Ministers. The OEP's response you can read in full has been very clear:
"We state that the proposed changes would demonstrably reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in existing environmental law, and that the Government has not adequately explained how, alongside such weakening of environmental law, new policy measures will ensure it still meets its objectives for water quality and protected site condition."