Countryside wins new safeguards in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Working alongside the Better Planning Coalition, CPRE has helped secure key safeguards for nature and the countryside as the Planning and Infrastructure Bill progresses through the House of Lords. 

Peers have now backed a series of important amendments that reflect many of CPRE’s long-standing priorities for a fairer, more sustainable planning system. These include:

• Ensuring the government cannot ignore Parliament or select committees when changing National Policy Statements for major infrastructure projects.
• Giving Parliament a say over new regulations that decide which planning decisions are made by council officers and which go to councillors on planning committees – a crucial step for keeping decision-making transparent and open to communities.
• Strengthening protections for chalk streams in new sub-regional spatial development strategies.
• Making sure new spatial development strategies prioritise brownfield first, encourage urban densification, and reduce travel distances.
• Limiting new environmental delivery plans to four areas — nutrient neutrality, water quality, water resources and air quality — where evidence shows the plans could work without threatening important habitats or species.

The Bill will have its Third Reading in the House of Lords on 10 November, followed shortly by Commons consideration of the Lords’ amendments. CPRE will be calling on MPs to keep these vital improvements in the final legislation.

Whatever the outcome, CPRE will continue to champion the countryside and push for planning reforms that deliver genuine environmental benefits: protecting and enhancing the places people and wildlife call home.