Environmental Protection

(asked on 25th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the compatibility of Government environmental and planning policies.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 3rd February 2022

Defra and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) work closely on planning policy to ensure it aligns with our ambitious environmental commitments. This includes supporting our statutory targets to be set through the Environment Act 2021.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies and biodiversity net gain are just two of the many ways in which we are ensuring greater complementarity. Public bodies, including Local Planning Authorities, will need to have regard to Local Nature Recovery Strategies, a new England-wide system of spatial strategies to drive nature’s recovery and provide wider environmental benefits. Defra and DLUHC are also working closely together on the implementation of biodiversity net gain to ensure it is fully integrated into the new planning system, including in Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

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