Is Labour’s Planning Bill putting private equity at risk?
It’s not just conservationists who are up in arms about the watering down of environmental protections in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the private markets are concerned too, says Robert Oates
There’s an irony at the heart of the UK government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill: in its rush to accelerate the development of 1.5m new homes, it’s igniting legal battles that could stall progress entirely. The latest? A potential judicial review announced by campaign group Wild Justice. Wild Justice rightly notes the government may be actively misleading the public about environmental protections being ‘enhanced’ in the Bill, when they are in fact being rolled back.
But environmentalists aren’t the only ones up in arms. Although a quieter voice until now, there’s rumbling discontent in the private equity world about the impact of the Bill on private markets.
That should set alarm bells ringing in Westminster. Over £250m of private equity has flowed into the UK’s ecology sector in just the last five years. That capital, much of it from pension funds, was deployed on the assumption that environmental regulation wasn’t going anywhere. But this Bill threatens to blow a hole in that logic. If ecological assessments are sidelined or ‘streamlined’ out of the process entirely, the value of those investments could nosedive.
Investors are preparing to challenge
Institutional investors don’t take that lightly. There are whispers of investors preparing to challenge. Waves of discontent and opposition, from the City as well as the countryside, would be a serious headache for a government trying to speed things up.
I say this as the CEO of the largest ecological consultancy delivering assessments across the UK. I unequivocally support the ambition to build more homes. But policy needs to be honest about trade-offs. Telling the public this Bill strengthens environmental protections when it clearly doesn’t is not just disingenuous — it’s legally risky.
Telling the public this Bill strengthens environmental protections when it clearly doesn’t is not just disingenuous – it’s legally risky
The Office for Environmental Protection has already called the Bill a “regression” in environmental standards. Two of the UK’s top planning chambers have reviewed the proposals and reached the same conclusion. This isn’t niche legal wrangling — it’s fundamental policy risk. And it’s beginning to spook capital.
There are glimmers of smart thinking in the Bill. Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs), for instance, are a promising tool — particularly for tackling nutrient neutrality at a strategic level. But they were never meant to replace the rigorous protections around individual species. Trying to stretch EDPs that far is a legal overreach, and investors know it.
Proposals to institute a ‘mandatory’ levy that can churn out nature delivery somewhere in the country to compensate for nature loss is also misguided. This levy needs to be a measure of last resort, a fallback only paid for by developers when private nature market options have been exhausted.
The UK is already one of the most nature-depleted countries in the developed world. Our ecosystems are on the edge. The last thing we need is a planning regime that pushes them over it. Once biodiversity crosses a certain threshold, the collapse is not gradual — it’s irreversible. At that point, the government will be violating its legally-binding commitments to the environment.
There is still time to course-correct. With targeted amendments, this Bill can support faster, more strategic planning without triggering economic blowback. But the longer the government pushes ahead without addressing these flaws, the more risk it creates — for nature, for developers, and for institutional capital.
Good planning is not about cutting corners. It’s about knowing which corners are load-bearing. If the government wants speed, it needs stability. Right now, it’s threatening both.
Robert Oates is CEO and founder of ecological consultancy Arbtech