The government needs to stop flip-flopping on its environmental policies

Over the last few weeks, I have spoken at a few conferences.  Every time I am on my feet, or sometimes walking back to my seat, there has been a government announcement which changes the policy or outlook on the very topic I have been speaking on. This is how fast the planning and environmental policy and legislative framework is changing. It can be hard to keep up and  trying to keep up can leave you exhausted with changing policy fatigue.

Last week, we heard of the possible changes to the journey to net zero (not the net zero target itself); this week the potential scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 which will have the effect of “unlevelling up” the country. As Andy Burnham said this week, not building the northern leg of HS2 will create a chasm, not just a divide, between the north and south of the country. It would end the northern powerhouse rail project – and anyone in the north trying to make the east to west and vice versa journey knows how painful this can be. But the effect of this scrapping will cause more harm than just delays to northerners’ train journey times.

As more than 80 business leaders, including British Land’s CEO, Tim Roberts of HBD and Patricia Moore from Turner and Townsend, have said, this decision will affect economic growth, since connectivity and public sector investment are key to this. They in themselves create security in investment, not only of the infrastructure itself, but for the businesses located or looking to locate to the North and this will have an impact of jobs and the sustainability of the region.

Another issue still live and on the table for reform are the rules around nitrate neutrality.  With the defeat in the House of Lords, the loosening up of the rules as to how a local planning authority should decide on new residential developments in 74 areas which require special protection and consideration, were dropped from the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (“LURB”). The bill is likely to gain royal assent before 7 November. It has been reported in the MSM, however, that the government is planning to ‘rip up green rules to build 140,000 new homes’ and ‘to scrap EU derived regulations that are blocking construction’. This means bringing forward changes to the rules in a new act which will be in the King’s Speech. Therese Coffey has confirmed this is likely to be similar to the provisions which were put to the House of Lords in the LURB.

It will be interesting to see how this new legislation will overcome the declaration required by the Environment Act 2021 which prevents environmental regression. Given the position of the Office of Environmental Protection (OEP), which stated in open correspondence, that the previous changes were a regression of environmental protections, it is hard to conceive how any government minister would be able to make such a declaration without some kind of fudge. And also to see what action the OEP would or could take.

What is clear is that, again, the uncertainty over the future of the rules has led to sites not coming forward and delays to habitat mitigation schemes which would bring forward much needed housing development. It is worth noting that this market has been emerging; it is becoming more sophisticated the more time it has had to bed in. From what we have learnt from our work in the Solent region there are workable and cost-effective solutions which can be used to bring forward development with these protections. Changing the rules without notice severely damages confidence.

For now, we wait to see further detail on what is being proposed, but once again, the uncertainty has created havoc in the investment of the emergent habitats market.

There have also been recent announcements on the changes to the works required by landlords to improve a building’s energy efficient. The justification for these changes being that it is keeping costs down for the consumer, but this seems misplaced given that there are over 6 million people living in energy poverty. Forcing landlords to increase energy efficiency measures in homes not only decreases carbon emissions (remember the somewhat bumpy route to net zero) but also decreases energy bills for some of the lowest income households. Without these measures there is a vicious circle of increasing energy use and increasing costs.

And finally, whilst there may be residential developments caught up in the nitrate neutrality rules, there are even more stymied by the government’s u-turn on housing targets, the lack of progress on an updated NPPF and the devastating effect this has had on local plans. But I guess questions over these policies were not made to the focus group.

It is clear the narrative that Labour are house building blockers not builders will continue. Perhaps therefore, we should remind ourselves that the most successful government for the housing sector was Tony Blair’s Labour, the worst two performing Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. So perhaps it is time to change the narrative?

 Claire Petricca-Riding is head of the planning and environment team at Irwin Mitchell