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Editor's Pick

What is the UK Nature Restoration Fund?

Part of the Plan for Change will significantly boost funding for green development commitments, meaning companies meet obligations collaboratively. 

Labour’s efforts to unblock Britain’s embattled national infrastructure projects continue with the announcement of a new Nature Restoration Fund. The finance route will be used to deliver elements of major new developments such as nature restoration and habitat recovery at scale. 

Currently, developers are left alone to fulfil their environmental regulatory requirements, meaning work to enhance and protect nature – whether on-site or offset elsewhere – is often delivered in a staggered fashion, resulting in slow results. Under the proposed new regime, firms would contribute to a national financing system, with collective funds used to cover the costs of much larger projects, delivering far more significant impact.  

Billed as ‘common sense changes’, the Nature Restoration Fund would enable the firms responsible for building national infrastructure to begin reduce how long they spend on things like site analysis and assessments for mitigation efforts. In turn, this would expedite the planning process and lead to work beginning much faster.

 Natural England, or a similar delivery body, would then look at what was needed to drive the actions for strategic scale nature and species recovery. A far more effective approach than the standard today, which looks at the situation site-by-site. 

‘It is evident that we need to take urgent action to address the worsening decline of nature, and we must also lean into the challenges posed by housing and infrastructure shortages,’ said Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England.

‘We will continue to work with the Government to help deliver their plans – but the two key issues of today, nature and economic recovery, should not be pitted against one another, as we step up efforts to avoid losing what protected remnants of nature remain while also restoring some of what has gone,’ he continued. ‘Instead, we should consider the huge opportunities which can be unlocked through better strategic planning which considers environmental improvements, economic development and green spaces for public enjoyment on a landscape scale.’

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