Nature sidelined as housebuilders lobby ministers over planning bill

The scale of lobbying of ministers by developers on Labour's planning bill, which seeks to rip up environmental rules to boost economic growth, can be exposed as campaigners make last-ditch attempts to secure protections for nature.

- Sandra Laville Helena Horton

The government published its planning and infrastructure bill in March. Before and after publication, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, have met dozens of developers in numerous meetings. The body representing professional ecologists has not met one minister despite requests to do so.

The bill will reach its final stages before royal assent in the coming days, after months of tussling between ministers, nature groups and ecologists. The government has promised to change the rules to allow 1.5m homes to be built by the end of this parliament as part of its push for growth.

As last-minute wrangling over the changes continues, peers have secured a key amendment that would ensure species such as dormice, nightingales and hedgehogs, and rare habitats including wetlands and ancient woodlands, continue to be protected.

Prof Kathy Willis, the crossbench peer who put forward the successful amendment in the House of Lords on behalf of nature organisations and ecologists, said the changes would reduce the risk the bill posed to the natural world, but also help developers. She urged MPs to vote for the amended bill next week.

"It provides a pragmatic way out of what are the real things blocking development and is a win-win amendment because it will help developers build houses, but also means the vast majority of nature, the things the public really care about, will be protected," she said.