Nature is not a blocker to growth, a watchdog has warned ministers as its latest report shows Government is “largely off track” to meet environmental goal and legal targets.

The Government has made boosting economic growth a central mission, with planning and regulatory reforms that have prompted concerns from conservation groups that protected habitats and wildlife from newts to bats are being targeted as “blockers” for new housing and development.

Now the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), the statutory watchdog which is tasked with making sure governments meet their legal green commitments, has warned that the recovery of nature from its current depleted state is a “pre-requisite for prosperity, health and well-being”.

But the OEP warned that without immediate action, key targets for 2030 including halting declines in species and ensuring 30% of land and sea is protected for nature, would be missed “on this government’s watch”.

In response to the report, which also found the Government was off track on more targets and commitments and on track for fewer than in the last annual assessment, conservationists warned the administration was at risk of being the first to break crucial nature recovery laws.

The Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition of environmental groups called for rapid scale up of wildlife-friendly farming to deliver for nature, as the OEP’s report warned resources “appeared as stretched as ever”.

The OEP said £500 million over 20 years for landscape recovery schemes, which aim to restore nature and provide assets such as clean water and flood mitigation across whole landscapes, was a “particularly marked shortfall” relative to its potential for delivering on a range of green goals.

The watchdog urged the Government to get nature-friendly farming right, which it said was the “biggest lever” it can pull to make gains for nature on land.

Richard Broadbent, environmental law director at Freeths, said:

“It is not surprising that the OEP are again reporting a failure to meet statutory nature targets, but it is still grim reading to see how far off track we are.

“This is on the back of the OEP reporting last year that only 33.5% of SSSIs in England and Northern Ireland were in favourable condition as of September 2025, with more than 20% either stagnating or declining. The reason for those abysmal figures, the OEP said, was a lack of ambitious, legally binding targets and a coherent, costed strategy for improving the condition and extent of protected sites. This speaks to there being deep systemic reasons why consistently we are not only failing to meet statutory targets but have little hope of ever achieving them.

“I am grateful, however, that the OEP continues to shine a spotlight on these failures and it is hoped that continued pressure will bring about an improvement”.