Guidance

Factsheet: Nature Restoration Fund

Published 11 March 2025

The government is committed to sustained economic growth and getting Britain building again. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is another major milestone in our reform programme.

The Bill will speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, supporting delivery of the government’s Plan for Change milestones of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes in England and fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament.

It will also support delivery of the government’s Clean Power 2030 target by ensuring that key clean energy projects are built as quickly as possible.

These fact sheets are designed to inform readers on:

a) the issue specific measures are solving
b) what the Bill will do
c) what this means in practice

What is the issue?

Sustained economic growth is the number one mission of this government, but this cannot come at the expense of our natural environment. A healthy natural environment is essential both in its own right and for sustained and resilient growth.

Existing approaches to protect and restore our most important habitats and species have not been able to reverse the trend of environmental decline, while creating significant barriers to building the homes and infrastructure we need. To grow the economy and recover nature we need new tools and a new approach. We want to make better use of the millions of pounds that are spent each year on bespoke mitigation and compensation schemes, by using this money to fund strategic interventions that provide greater benefit for nature than the status quo. Through this approach we want to provide the necessary certainty for all parties that we will take consolidated, coordinated action to drive nature recovery whilst allowing vital development to come forward.

What will the Planning and Infrastructure Bill do?

By establishing the Nature Restoration Fund we are creating the opportunity for housing and infrastructure to do more for environmental recovery. This is a marked change from the current approach which, at most, requires development to offset its impact and no further, while placing strong emphasis on precisely calculated project-by-project measures. This can slow development coming forward and do little to support nature recovery. The measures in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill provide the framework to allow us to take a more strategic approach through the creation of Environmental Delivery Plans.

In creating an Environmental Delivery Plan (EDP), either on its own initiative or at the request of the Secretary of State, Natural England will set out a package of conservation measures sufficient to address one or more environmental impacts of development and secure an environmental uplift. Rather than being limited to addressing the impact of a single development, an EDP will be able to pool resources and deliver conservation measures at scale to maximise the outcome for the environment whilst securing secondary benefits like public access to green spaces. At the same time, developers will benefit from a streamlined process and simple user experience. This new approach means more for nature, not less.

However, we recognise that this is a departure from the current approach, which is why we have constructed the legislation to ensure that:

• an EDP can only be put in place where the Secretary of State is satisfied the conservation measures will deliver the proposed environmental improvement.
• EDPs and the conservation measures they propose are evidence-based and properly scrutinised before being put in place.
• an EDP includes back-up measures that can be deployed if monitoring shows the environmental outcomes are not being achieved.
• Natural England are empowered and given the tools to deliver the conservation measures needed to secure the aims of the EDP. As now, Natural England will work with third parties such as farmers, habitat banks, and environmental NGOs to deliver conservation measures.

While this approach will offer flexibility for Natural England to consider a wide range of conservation measures, an EDP will only be put in place where the conservation measures are sufficient to more than address the relevant environmental impacts. The government recognises there may be times when a strategic approach isn’t feasible or will only be feasible once better evidence is available.

To support these measures, the Bill clarifies protections for Ramsar Sites, by putting the existing policy protections on a statutory footing, simplifying the implementation of this international convention.

What will this mean in practice?

This new approach places environmental experts at the heart of the approach with Natural England tasked with designing and delivering EDPs. The measures in the Bill set out the detailed operation of the Nature Restoration Fund but, at its core, there are 5 key phases:

1. Framing the EDP – EDPs will define the environmental impacts they cover, such as nutrient pollution or the impact development might have on a protected species. EDPs will be spatially specific with clear maps setting out where development is covered by an EDP and what scale of development the EDP can support.

2. Designing the measures – EDPs will set out the suite of conservation measures that will be deployed to more than address the impact of development across a given area. For example, an EDP covering nutrient pollution will set out how the combined effect of the conservation measures will go beyond the current expectations of nutrient neutrality and lead to an improvement in water quality.

3. Setting the levy rate – A simple charging schedule, sufficient to cover the costs of the conservation measures, will be payable by developers to meet the relevant legal obligation associated with the impacts addressed by the EDP.

4. Consultation and approval – in developing an EDP, Natural England will benefit from views captured through consultation before the EDP is submitted to the Secretary of State for approval. When considering the EDP, the Secretary of State will be bound by a new legal test to ensure that the conservation measures outweigh the negative effect of development.

5. Delivering on the EDP – once the EDP is in place, Natural England will the necessary powers to use funds collected to implement the conservation measures. They will then monitor the impact of the measures to ensure they are working as expected and make any amendments to the EDP that may be necessary.