How Natural England became a green dictatorship

Telegraph

23-03-2025

When Natural England disregarded nearly 200 objections to designate Penwith Moors a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Eric Murley was not happy.
The environmental regulator's 2023 decision means farmers in the Cornish idyll have to apply for consent for a raft of activities, including ploughing.
The confrontation has left 78-year-old Murley, who runs a 350-acre family dairy farm, hoping that the quango will one day reap what it sows. So, imagine his surprise when he found out last week that the Government is about to give Natural England the power to slap a compulsory purchase on his land.
The reason? It's because the quango lies at the centre of the Government's ambitious plans to spark a housing revolution designed to build 1.5 million homes.
Developers themselves will no longer be obliged to offset the environmental damage in the area of the building, with the inevitable delays. Instead, they'll pay into a national nature restoration fund. It will be Natural England's job to offset the environmental damage of the new large-scale developments by setting up nature reserves and rewilding land on a national as opposed to local basis.
To this end, the draft of the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill, unveiled by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner earlier this month, gives Natural England powers to seize farmland, allotments and other green spaces for this environmental offsetting, which will free up sites for developers.
But critics fear this conceals a breathtaking power grab by Natural England. When it comes into force, the bill will give local authorities in England, alongside Natural England, the power to seize farmland at 'bargain' rates.
The backlash is hardly surprising: farmers have denounced the bill as a 'landgrab', 'Marxism', and the 'death of property rights', as well as another nail in the coffin of farming.
'Natural England? I wouldn't trust them with a barge pole to be perfectly honest,' says Murley. 'If they think they have a chance of getting it done, they'll come and jump in, regardless of the farmer. They aren't going to bother about us. They just push us aside.
'I have got no time for Natural England as a body at all. At all,' he adds. 'We have had several ministers down here over the last two and half years and every time I say to them 'Have you got any authority over Natural England?' And they say no.
'They are unanswerable. Look, can it be right in a democracy that a quango can effectively put a farm out of business?'
Murley is not alone in looking at Natural England's burgeoning powers with alarm.
'Natural England was originally meant to be the advisor to the Government, but over the years it has been handed a series of executive powers that have turned it into judge, jury and executioner,' says Victoria Vyvyan, the president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA). 'Now no one can really challenge them.'
The bill reflects both Sir Keir Starmer, and Rayner's, determination to clear the planning logjam for a largescale housing and infrastructure programme. The move to hand Natural England its extended powers is designed to help avoid delays and often protracted and expensive mitigation projects. These have included the infamous bat tunnel on the HS2 route with European rules on protecting habitat and wildlife still in place. The bill ballooned to £100 million.
But what has particularly outraged farmers and landowners is that local authorities and Natural England will be able to buy the land at its agricultural value, which critics believe will impair the value of farms. The bill effectively removes 'hope value', or the potential development value of land.
'Housing and nature are not competing interests,' says Oliver Harmar, the chief strategy officer at Natural England. 'Sustainable development and nature recovery must go hand in hand, but the current planning system needs to change.
'We are working with the Government to deliver their ambition to grow nature and grow the economy for the benefit of everybody. This includes ensuring guidance is fit for purpose and moving toward better strategic planning to secure environmental improvements and enabling development. Natural England is fully accountable to the Secretary of State and Parliament.'
Experts have told The Telegraph that the exact mechanisms by which Natural England would exercise their powers under the bill has yet to be spelt out. But Murley worries that he, along with any other landowner, would be rendered helpless in the face of a compulsory purchase order from Natural England.
For Natural England's 'activist' chairman Tony Juniper, the decision to hand his quango such sweeping powers represents an extraordinary turnaround.
In 2022, only three years after Juniper was appointed, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs floated the idea of closing it down. Tory critics had become increasingly concerned with what they viewed as Natural England's 'activist' agenda.
Last year a group of Conservative MPs wrote to the then Defra secretary, Steve Barclay, urging him to strip Natural England of its SSSI powers.
'Natural England is completely independent and can make decisions without ministerial sign off, says Greg Smith, Tory MP for Mid Buckinghamshire. 'On the one hand we have Rachel Reeves attacking quangos and on the other they have given a quango with no democratic oversight the power to take land.
'At the end of the day this all points in the direction of less food security, loss of natural beauty and loss of rural areas.'
A former minister, who did not want to be named, says: 'The main issue I had with Natural England was the gold plating of the powers they had, which, along with other quangos is becoming quite a threat to democracy.'
He adds that he has come across 'farmers who were unhappy with Natural England' but when he went to Natural England 'Tony Juniper said, 'We have got the act… if you don't like it, ministers can change legislation'.'
'Environmentally destructive'
A life-long environmentalist and former Friends of the Earth director, Juniper has a long history of attacking governments on environmental issues.
In 2011, before he joined Natural England, he was signatory to a letter that accused the Government of being 'on a path to become the most environmentally destructive government to hold power… since the environmental movement was born.'
Since joining Natural England in 2019 Juniper has repeatedly promoted 'net zero' on social media despite Natural England's code of conduct's requirement for political neutrality.
Juniper has also attacked Brexit and in a Tweet last month appeared to issue a coded dig at Kemi Badenoch's scepticism around net zero when reposted a tweet by Badenoch, marking Margaret Thatcher's election as Tory leader 50 years earlier. 'Baroness Thatcher was the first Prime Minister to take a political lead on climate change, & Teresa [sic] May when she was PM enacted the net zero goal for 2050,' he said. 'These distinguished climate leaders hopefully provide inspiration for their successors.'
In 2023 it emerged that Natural England was accused of stalling plans to build up to 145,000 homes thanks to concerns about potential pollution of rivers.
Natural England has a 'nutrient neutrality' policy, which derives from the European Court of Justice. These block development in designated areas unless it can be shown they would not increase levels of nitrogen or phosphorous in the rivers. Yet construction companies have long claimed that the bulk of waste flowing into rivers comes from farms, not housing and infrastructure projects.
In the same year, Juniper was accused of failing to declare his membership of the National Trust, Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB before a key vote. The vote saw Natural England designate a large swathe of Penwith Moors an SSSI despite widespread objections. At the time Natural England said it 'strongly rejected' claims of conflicts of interests and that all board members had observed the relevant rules.
Because of the SSSI designation, farmers, including Murley, said they were told that they would no longer be able to spread lime on the land to neutralise soil acidity and allow farming.
'So, in effect, they were stopping us from farming,' says Murley. 'They can effectively put a firm out of business with no compensation, because there is no compensation with SSSI.'
The Cornishman is convinced that Natural England's management was determined to drive through the SSSI as a flagship development.
'We are going to make a big splash in West Cornwall,' says Murley. 'It was going to be a big deal for them, and they were going to force it through come what may.'
'I run this business with my wife and three sons,' he says. 'My sons now say to me... do we really need to be bothering with farming, and I've never heard this before. Talking about this still upsets me now.'
Natural England says that Penwith SSSI was chosen on scientific evidence and reflected its statutory duty to protect areas of special environmental interest. The quango also says it always seeks to work with farmers and landowners and that it will provide consent for the majority of established farming activities.
Murley says that Natural England had recently written to farmers in the SSSI to say they could now use lime, but he says that the damage had been done.
Still, the Cornishman has some sage advice for any farmers should Natural England come rattling their front doors with their new expanded powers.
'My advice would be to politely tell them to get stuffed.'