OEP Chair Dame Glenys Stacey has written to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Steve Reed about planning reform.
The letter welcomes Government's commitment to ensuring nature recovery and development work well together and recognises the potential in the proposed approach to planning reforms, if implemented effectively.
Dame Glenys highlights the findings of the OEPs report on environmental assessments, which found three key issues that need to be addressed to allow any system to work well: lack of post-decision monitoring, evaluation and reporting; lack of access to information and lack of access to expertise. She also talks of the importance of the Environmental Principles Policy Statement in implementing planning reform, and of the OEP's role to provide advice when laws relating to the environment are changed.
NB The letters to each Secretary of State can be downloaded via the blue buttons to the right of this page (the text is the same for each). Our report on environmental assessments can be found here: Environmental assessments are not as effective as they should be due to practical barriers to implementation, says OEP | Office for Environmental Protection
Edit: A reply from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Steve Reed was published on this page on 31 March, 2025.
