England's first proposed Environmental Delivery Plan (EDP), for Norfolk, has drawn criticism from farmer groups, lawyers and ecologists who say its flat levy could undercut the private market in which landowners sell nutrient mitigation to developers.
EDPs, created by the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, let developers pay a Nature Restoration Levy to Natural England for each home they build instead of buying nutrient credits site by site. The money goes into a Nature Restoration Fund for conservation work at landscape scale. The Norfolk plan, the first of 16 nutrient EDPs in development to go to consultation, covers nitrogen and phosphorus reaching the Broads, Broadland Ramsar site and River Wensum. It proposes 109ha of fen creation and restoration, 395ha of land-use change largely taking land out of farming, 162ha of fen management and deer management on 3,700ha, to help unlock up to 15,780 homes. The levy is £2,675 per dwelling of any size, before indexation and VAT.
Environmental Farmers Group (EFG), a network of more than 650 farmers in nine regional groups, estimates private nutrient mitigation typically costs £3,500 to £9,000 per home; consultancy Greenshank Environmental puts it at £2,500 to £10,000. "This will therefore likely severely impact the private market, which is exactly what the government is trying to support," said EFG managing director Digby Sowerby.
The CLA had already raised concerns about EDPs' effect on nature markets, their running costs and the risk of compulsory purchase. Matthew Tucker, a director in a law firm's planning and compulsory purchase team, said the flat rate creates a new tension in the market and that there is a core risk the plan is underfunded.
Alexa Culver, general counsel at RSK Wilding, said the whole system should be halted and reviewed. Sally Hayns, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, said only about a third of the proposed measures appear to reduce nutrient loads directly, with too much reliance on compensation.
The consultation runs for 28 working days and closes at 9.29am on Tuesday 27 October 2026. EFG's fear is that the levy will significantly undercut the nutrient projects farmers are bringing forward in some catchments, and it says the lack of a timeline for further EDPs has already left existing markets uncertain.
Reported for Farmers Weekly by Suzie Horne.
Photo: Northmetpit / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: Farmers Weekly
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