{"id":934001,"date":"2026-10-19T17:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/934001\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T17:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:44:11","slug":"stop-cash-to-trash-housebuilding-in-norfolk-broads-says-labour-mp-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/934001\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop \u2018cash to trash\u2019 housebuilding in Norfolk Broads, says Labour MP | Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The environment watchdog is being urged to intervene in \u201ccash to trash\u201d planning rules that will allow almost 16,000 new homes in the Norfolk<\/a> Broads despite the damage to one of the UK\u2019s most environmentally protected areas.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s flagship planning reforms allow damage to protected habitats and species to be overlooked if developers pay into a central nature restoration fund, which is used for conservation actions at a later date. These environmental delivery plans (EDPs) have been called \u201ccash to trash\u201d by critics<\/a>, who say they roll back decades of environmental law and are a \u201clicence to kill nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Norfolk Broads, a heavily protected biodiversity hotspot that is home to more than a quarter of the UK\u2019s rarest plants and animals, is the guinea pig for the first EDP. Developers will pay \u00a32,675 per house \u2013 \u00a342m in total \u2013 and in return get permission to build 15,780 new homes in the Broads.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s nature adviser, Natural England<\/a>, which created the plan, states the development will cause environmental harm in the form of physical, chemical, hydrological and biological damage to the habitats and rare species from increased nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. The Broads are already in ecological decline and require cuts of 91-97% in nutrient pollution to recover.<\/p>\n

Chris Hinchliff, the Labour MP for North East Hertfordshire, is calling on the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) to intervene and stop the approval of the plan<\/a>. He said the first EDP \u2013 which will be used as a blueprint for others \u2013 is in breach of the requirements of the government\u2019s Planning and Infrastructure Act, is not based on the best available science and does not address pollution. In a letter to Natalie Prosser, the chief executive of the OEP, he said: \u201cUnless the OEP acts now, those failures will be locked into the first plan of its kind and repeated in every future EDP that follows.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Natural England\u2019s own figures, the conservation measures it funds would leave about 83% of the extra nitrogen and up to 61% of the extra phosphorus going into the water, every year and permanently. These are protected sites that the plan itself says need pollution inputs cut by up to 97% to recover,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hinchliff said measures that would have reduced nutrient pollution from the new homes, such as upgrading septic tanks, using small-scale underground treatment plants for homes not connected to the mains sewers and planting riverside buffer strips, were not included in Natural England\u2019s EDP.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their place, the plan relies on indirect measures: fen cutting, deer control, catch-dyke works, removing one weir and restoring one kilometre of river,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA plan that leaves most of the pollution unaddressed, that \u2018locks in\u2019 ecological degraded status, does not \u2018address\u2019 the harm in any ordinary sense of the word,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Ministers say the EDPs are needed to unblock growth as they pursue a target to build 1.5m new homes by the end of this parliament and are a \u201cwin-win\u201d for nature and economic growth. The nature restoration fund, they say, will deliver coordinated, larger-scale conservation measures rather than piecemeal offsets.<\/p>\n

Broadcaster Chris Packham<\/a>, who is supporting the campaign against the Norfolk EDP by the charity WildFish, said environmental laws fought for over decades would be cancelled at the stroke of a pen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Norfolk Broads are among Europe\u2019s most precious wetlands: swallowtails and fen orchids, bitterns booming in the reeds and lamprey and bullhead in the gravels of the Wensum, one of England\u2019s finest chalk rivers,\u201d said Packham.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut \u2026 they are drowning in pollution and the government has devised a cunning scheme to pour in a whole lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Down to Earth<\/p>\n

The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The push for growth comes as the UK is in a nature crisis: wild bird populations have fallen<\/a> to their lowest level since records began, with nearly half of species in decline, hedgehog numbers<\/a> have plummeted by 66% and sewage, agricultural runoff and chemicals have left rivers suffering with a toxic cocktail of pollution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Norfolk Broads EDP is out to consultation, which ends on 27 October. The Wildlife Trusts said the EDP would allow phosphorus from new homes to increase existing pollution levels on the rivers Yare, Bure and Wensum \u2013 a delicate chalk stream \u2013 without sufficient action from developers to mitigate for the impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven minor increases could be enough to tip the health of these rivers over the edge, with calamitous consequences for the Norfolk Broads,\u201d said Matthew Browne, the head of public affairs at the Wildlife Trusts.<\/p>\n

Bradley Tooze, the nature restoration fund director at Natural England, said: \u201cThe environment delivery plan aims to deliver better outcomes to protect the precious habitats of the Norfolk Broads while enabling sustainable development, including through river restoration measures and wetland habitat creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome all views on our proposals and encourage stakeholders to share their expertise to help shape this new approach to nature restoration.\u201d<\/p>\n

A government spokesperson said: \u201cThe aim of this environmental delivery plan is to protect and boost the natural environment. It\u2019s based on the latest evidence and has been scrutinised by a scientific panel including independent experts. We welcome contributions to the ongoing consultation where people or organisations have views about how best to secure the aims we all share \u2013 protecting and restoring nature at a scale the status quo isn\u2019t delivering.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The environment watchdog is being urged to intervene in \u201ccash to trash\u201d planning rules that will allow almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-934001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}