Government plan 'threat to nature', charity says

A key government plan poses "one of the biggest threats to nature laws in over a generation", a charity has said.

Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) has asked people to write to their MPs over concerns it has about the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

The government said it should speed up building and improve infrastructure but the charity said it would allow developers to sidestep environment regulations, provided they paid into a new fund.

A government spokesperson said the bill, currently at the Committee stage in the House of Commons, would "deliver a win-win for the economy and nature".

BBOWT said the government's plan for the Nature Restoration Fund, managed by Natural England, was an "attempt to cover its tracks" over potential nature damage.

"Our natural world underpins every element of our economy, and if we want long-term sustainable growth, we must invest in nature," Estelle Bailey, its chief executive, said.

"We know that a thriving economy depends on a thriving natural world, but Keir Starmer is bizarrely pushing a false choice between protecting nature and building homes.

"This is an unnecessary and divisive rhetoric – the two can and must be considered together."

Labour has promised to build 1.5 million new homes in England over the next five years, with the pledge of boosting economic growth.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said in February there would be "no excuses" to not hit that target in England by 2029.

The government spokesperson said: "We have inherited a failing system that has held up the building of homes and infrastructure, blocking economic growth but doing nothing for nature's recovery.

"Communities and the environment deserve better than this broken status-quo.

"Our Planning and Infrastructure Bill will deliver a win-win for the economy and nature – introducing the Nature Restoration Fund to unblock the building of much-needed homes and infrastructure, funding large scale environmental improvements across whole communities, and introducing robust protections so that our new approach can only be used where it will create positive outcomes for the environment."

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