A new proposal from a group of peers could disarm the most damaging aspect of the Planning & Infrastructure Bill and reduce the risks that it currently poses to the natural world. The Bill, as it currently stands, represents one of the largest dismantling of protections ever seen for the most precious wildlife habitats and species.

Part 3 of the Planning & Infrastructure Bill introduces a new system where environmental impacts of development in some locations could seek to be addressed through Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs). The peers’ proposal would mean that protected wildlife – from woodlands and sand dunes to otters and barn owls – would not be covered by EDPs and so be saved from a broadbrush approach which threatens to undermine their protection.

As the Bill nears its final debate in the House of Lords, The Wildlife Trusts are calling on peers to support Amendment 130 – tabled by Baroness Willis of Summertown and a strong coalition of other peers – which would remove sensitive natural habitats and species from the EDP process. Peers are urged to adopt this amendment to reduce the risk of damaging an already severely diminished natural world, alongside supporting efforts to further minimise the threat by adding the mitigation hierarchy to the Bill.