The Government is pushing reforms to environmental regulations that aim to boost growth and nature and avoid repeats of the £100 million “bat tunnel”.

Penny Simpson, Environmental Law Partner at leading law firm Freeths, said:

“The Corry Review’s recommendations are eagerly anticipated. The fundamental problem with modern economies is that good intentions to try to address problems as they emerge can, over the long run, lead to a steady accretion of rules and regulations which stifle innovation. Successive Governments as they take office have tried, and largely failed, to address this issue and this Government is no exception. The Corey Review is just the latest in a long list of attempts at implementing “smarter” and “leaner” regulatory frameworks.

“A key issue will be whether this report recognises the importance of a high integrity and appropriately governed private nature market which can successfully attract investment and thereby grow. The Government’s document published yesterday* precedes the Cory Review and suggests that the Government will be exploring ‘launching a Nature Market Accelerator to bring much needed coherence to nature markets and accelerate investment’. It’s not clear what this means but it sounds encouraging. This is because when it comes to environmental regulation, it is tempting, but fundamentally wrong headed, to adopt an “either/or” approach between growth or the environment.

“Rather, if the Government wants a sustainable and flourishing economy and society it is essential that it adopts a ‘both/and’ approach, whereby we energetically and wholeheartedly invest in both the best developments our country badly needs as well as in the ecosystems and healthy environment critical to ensuring our society is sustainable. One of the best ways of achieving this is for Government to help create high-integrity, well-functioning nature markets. Doing this will ensure that as we invest in new development we are also investing in the ecosystems and natural capital assets necessary to ensure that those developments are sustainable.

“We do however need a clear strategy for nature markets from the Government and we are not getting that from the Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s Part 3 on Nature Recovery, where the role of private nature markets is left distinctly unclear.  We need amendments to the Bill which bring the two strategies together more coherently into a joined-up approach.”