The UK will face significant challenges to fund its biodiversity and net nature gain plans with ministers expected to face “difficult choices” as to where money can be allocated, according to a senior civil servant speaking at an event Friday.
Tom Lafford, head of land use policy in the UK’s ministry for environment, told a virtual audience that making sure adequate funding reaches local authorities and land owners to ensure biodiversity and nature protection represents a real challenge.
All local authorities that he had spoken to and worked with in relation to the UK plan for biodiversity net gain (BNG) had expressed concern that it would be hard to deliver with the money made available.
“It’s a huge challenge … As we produce this document, ministers are going to be confronted with some difficult choices about delivery,” he said.
“But I don’t want to pretend it is something that we have solved.”
The document referred to by Lafford is an upcoming land management strategy that is due to be published this year, with a first version open for consultation expected in May, though he confirmed during Friday’s webinar that there was not yet a hard deadline set by ministers.
Rosie Boycott, a member of the UK’s second legislative chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, and also of the country’s environment and climate change committee, expressed concern at the lack of clarity on funding.
“If we can’t deliver some kind of money on the ground these things remain great ideas on paper,” she told the event.
“Sadly, the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and over the last 50 years, much of the UK wildlife rich habitat has been lost or degraded and many of our once common species … are in long term decline,” she added.
Speakers including Lafford and Boycott also emphasised during the session the need to channel money to local institutions, due to the very different geographical contexts across different parts of England and Wales.
The discussion came in light of the government’s published response to a consultation on BNG that will see additional funding provided to local authorities to comply with new regulation on nature and biodiversity positivity.
Amendments to existing laws that passed last year now mean that any new developments across England and Wales will now need to prove a 10% net gain in biodiversity as a condition of planning permission.
The UK government said it had already provided last year £4.2 million of funding to local governments to provide support to prepare for mandatory BNG. It confirmed that it would be providing up to £16.7 mln to prepare the same authorities between now and November, when the new laws will become mandatory.
The BNG plans are a “first step”, Lafford continued, and that much work remained to be done.
He also confirmed that the transitioning from EU land use law to the post-Brexit UK versions was not hindering work on the government’s new plan.
Friday’s webinar was a policy conference organised by the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum.
By Roy Manuell – roy@carbon-pulse.com
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