Legislation – Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025

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Part 3Development and nature recovery

Environmental delivery plans: content

61Environmental features, environmental impacts and conservation measures

(1)

An EDP must identify—

(a)

one or more environmental features which are likely to be negatively affected by development to which the EDP applies, and

(b)

one or more ways in which that negative effect is likely to be caused by the development (the “environmental impact”).

But an EDP need not identify all of the possible environmental impacts on an environmental feature.

(2)

An environmental feature identified in an EDP may be—

(a)

a protected feature of a protected site, or

(b)

a protected species.

(3)

An EDP must set out the measures (“conservation measures”) that are to be taken by, or on behalf of, Natural England, under the EDP in order to—

(a)

address the environmental impact of development on the identified environmental feature, and

(b)

contribute to an overall improvement in the conservation status of the identified environmental feature (see also section 65(3)).

(4)

An EDP must set out the anticipated sequencing of the implementation of the conservation measures by reference to the development to which the EDP applies.

(5)

Where an identified environmental feature is a protected feature of a protected site that is wholly in England, the EDP may set out conservation measures that do not directly address the environmental impact of development on that feature at that site but instead seek to improve the conservation status of the same feature elsewhere.

(6)

But an EDP may include conservation measures of the type mentioned in subsection (5) only if Natural England considers that such measures would make a greater contribution to the improvement of the conservation status of the feature than measures that address the environmental impact of development on the feature at the protected site itself.

(7)

An EDP must include conservation measures that are not, at the time the EDP is made, expected to be needed but which must be implemented in the circumstances set out in the EDP.

(8)

Those circumstances must relate to the effectiveness of the conservation measures that have already been implemented, as revealed by the monitoring of the EDP (see section 82(4)(a)).

(9)

An EDP must state—

(a)

how much the conservation measures are expected to cost, and

(b)

how the conservation measures are to be maintained,

over the period covered by the EDP or, if longer, the period for which the conservation measures are likely to be required to address the environmental impact of development.

(10)

A conservation measure may take the form of a request, by Natural England, that a condition of development be imposed (see section 95).

(11)

In this section—

“England” includes—

(a)

the waters adjacent to England up to the seaward limits of the territorial sea, and

(b)

the English offshore region;

“English offshore region” has the same meaning as in the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 (see section 322(1) of that Act);

“the environmental impact of development” means the environmental impact, as identified in the EDP, of the maximum amount of development to which the EDP may apply, as specified in accordance with section 60(5).