The Nature Restoration Levy

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 received Royal assent in December 2025.

This tasks Natural England with producing Environmental Delivery Plans to identify and deliver strategic conservation measures that address specific environmental impacts of development on protected sites or species.

This will allow developers to pay a levy to the Nature Restoration Fund for the applicable (regional) EDP to mitigate their environmental impacts, rather than undertake their own assessments or deliver their own mitigation. The fund is to be ‘ring fenced’ and can only be spent on measures identified in the EDP.

The EDP will set out a charging schedule, sufficient to cover the costs of the conservation measures. A developer may request to pay the levy (as set out in the charging schedule), and if NE accepts this request for a specific development, this payment into the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) will enable developers to meet the relevant legal obligation associated with the impacts addressed by the EDP.

The first EDP’s will be as follows:

• 16 EDPs related to nutrient pollution from development affecting protected sites
• 7 EDPs for great crested newts (GCN), for development (including infrastructure) in England where GCN are present

However, more are expected to follow.

For many developers, particularly housebuilders operating in environmentally constrained areas, the levy could provide a simpler and more predictable route to securing planning permission than negotiating individual mitigation packages on a site-by-site basis.

However, we don’t yet know what the levy will cost. If it is costed at the right level, many developers would be happy to pay to make the constraint go away. If it is too expensive however, developers will continue to seek to provide their own mitigation.

The devil will be in the detail and at present there is very little detail.

We will, however, continue to monitor this and provide updates where we can.