Planning & Infrastructure Bill: Chalk Stream Amendment

Housing-development-environmental-impact

Support the Chalk Stream Amendment to the Planning & Infrastructure Bill

Please act now to protect our chalk streams by emailing your MP. This is the final opportunity to influence the controversial Planning and Infrastructure Bill before it returns to the House of Commons to be voted into law. This is scheduled to be on October 29th.

Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would allow developers to cause environmental harm to rare habitats such as chalk streams if they pay into a general fund to offset this environmental harm elsewhere. The Bill will imminently return to the Commons after completion of its Report stage in the Lords. 

The House of Lords has voted in favour of an amendment to the Bill by the Bishop of Norwich to provide greater protection for chalk streams.

When the Bill goes back to the Commons the changes made in the Lords are reviewed. The Government can reject those changes at that point. The Bill will become law when the Commons has finished voting on it. 
We now have an opportunity to add our voices to the campaign to protect chalk streams. Please take the time to email your MP and ask them to support the chalk stream amendment when the Bill returns to the Commons on 29th October.
You can use this website Write to Them to send a message to your MP
Template Letter to MP

What is the Planning & Infrastructure Bill?

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is a proposed law introduced to Parliament in March 2025, which aims to speed up the delivery of new homes and infrastructure projects. It includes measures to reform the planning process and streamline the planning process for nationally significant infrastructure projects.  Controversially, it also introduces a new approach to prevention of environmental harms by developments.

Part 3 of the Bill introduces a new, entirely unknown approach to mitigation which will significantly weaken our existing environmental protections. It would allow developers to pay into a fund to offset harm, instead of following important rules to avoid harming the environment. Known as the Environmental Delivery Plan (EDP), this approach allows environmental harm caused by development in particular locations to be offset by paying into the fund. However, in the case of rare and locally specific habitats such as chalk stream rivers, damage caused by development in these locations cannot be undone or mitigated elsewhere. The Bill does not explicitly include safeguards for irreplaceable habitats, to exempt them from the EDP approach, leaving them vulnerable to irreparable harm from developments.

Amendment 94: the Chalk Stream Amendment

The House of Lords has supported the amendment by the Bishop of Norwich to provide greater protection for chalk streams in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

Rejecting the government’s assurance that they are providing protection, the Bishop of Norwich said: “I am not convinced by [the Government’s] arguments; … Amendment 94 seeks to protect chalk streams, this precious habitat which we are the custodians of. It aims to restore biodiversity and create a planning system that works with nature, not against it. At present, I am afraid, the Bill before us fails to do this for chalk streams.”

The Government now has the opportunity to improve legislation with strong measures to make sure our globally important chalk streams are properly protected as it delivers its growth agenda, including house building and infrastructure improvements. 

Please write to your MP today to urge them to support Amendment 94, the chalk stream amendment.

Further Explanation of the Planning & Infrastructure Bill

Blog by Debbie Tann from Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust

Statement from the Angling Trust on the Chalk Streams Amendment