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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress she has made in fulfilling Commitment 86 in the 2025 Environmental Improvement Plan to make sure that everyone has access to green or blue spaces within a 15-minute walk from home.

This Government is committed to reducing physical and intangible barriers to accessing nature and ensuring everyone lives within a 15-minute walk of a green or blue space.

As set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), progress towards meeting these commitments is being made through work happening across government to both increase available natural space and make it more accessible. For example, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government's National Planning Policy Framework reform and Natural England’s Green Infrastructure Framework.

Actions being delivered by Defra include: the launch of the Wainwright Coast to Coast route and the King Charles III England Coast Path, creating nine new National River Walks, establishing three new National Forests, and publishing an Access to Nature Green Paper to explore further opportunities to enhance and expand access to green and blue spaces. Defra is also strengthening legislation to give National Parks and National Landscapes a clear mandate to widen the public’s access to nature by the end of this Parliament and publishing further details on supporting access to woodlands in a new Trees Action Plan.

Progress on delivery of the EIP will be set out in due course.