1 week Ago
Earlier this month, Parliament debated the second reading of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill – a ground-breaking piece of new legislation that aims to overhaul our restrictive planning laws. Today’s outdated planning regulations have long hindered our nation's growth and potential, preventing the construction of much-needed homes and infrastructure while stifling the ambitions of local and national businesses. In our area, it’s also held back affordable homes delivery, stopped farmers from building reservoirs, and prevented schools from expanding their premises.
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, Labour MP for Suffolk Coastal (Image: Laurie Noble) But the proposals are not just about development; they are also bringing forward proposals so that development and the environment can sit side by side, ensuring that neither one should hold back the other. If and when passed, the new Bill will introduce new Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and the Nature Restoration Fund, both of which could really supercharge nature’s recovery in areas that have been depleted or destroyed. In Suffolk, we’ve seen how this idea can work well – the Wildlife Trust’s Biodiversity Net Gain service has helped to establish new nature reserves such as Martlesham Wilds on the River Deben.
This former organic farm, now owned by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, is being returned to nature. By working with developers, they are establishing "habitat banks" on the reserve, enabling developers to invest in habitat bonds. In doing so, they are going beyond the minimum 10% Biodiversity Net Gain and often delivering 20% Biodiversity Net Gain locally.
The new law hopes to supercharge this model and ensure that more of nature can benefit, just as Martlesham Wilds has done. These steps in the Bill guide us in the right direction, but they should be seen as just the beginning of what our ambition could be. More can be done to make sure nature and development can sit happily alongside each other.
Firstly, we must make it explicitly clear that there are to be firm timeframes for the delivery of conservation measures set out in the EDP. This is a point that I’ll be pushing myself as the Bill progresses to its next stage – and will continue to make the case to Ministers. Secondly, we need to have higher expectations of what we can expect from developers.
Since being elected, I’ve been struck by how in Suffolk, we are far too complacent about what we should expect and what we can demand from developers – both housing and energy developers. On the one hand, that means asking for more from them – for our community infrastructure and investment in our local services. And I don’t mean asking for money to fix a roof on a community hall – I mean that we should expect developers to invest in our area, to act as real custodians of our communities, and invest in our people, families, schools, and services.
Where there is opportunity for companies to profit, there should be opportunity for people to benefit. But we’ve also been complacent in how we imagine and design developments in general – especially housing. Nature-rich open spaces, nature highways, and solar panels on new builds these are all incredibly simple things – but things that will make a world of difference to our communities and to nature, and are easy to implement – so long as we have the aspiration.
More widely, there is also a real opportunity for us to provide better leadership and coordination of energy and infrastructure projects here in Suffolk. I’m pushing for the proposed and much-welcomed Land Use Framework to be extended to create a Land and Sea Use Framework – to allow for better leadership and coordination of energy infrastructure projects. It’s these issues, and more besides, that I’ll be pushing in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s next stage, working to make sure that the new laws give us the best chance of unlocking our economic potential while driving forward net zero and simultaneously protecting nature.
Net zero and nature are two sides of the same coin, and it would be a coin with no value if it was one without the other. Jenny Riddell-Carpenter is Labour MP for Suffolk Coastal.
