Eco Chamber

Silent night: net gain ‘wounded’ in winter overhaul

Eco Chamber

Show Notes

The government has announced that the flagship nature policy, biodiversity net gain, is set to see substantial revisions in 2026 with development sites up to 0.2 hectares in size to be exempt from the requirement.

Labour has also revised England’s national planning policy blueprint – the National Planning Policy Framework.

On this week’s ECO Chamber, host James Agyepong-Parsons speaks with lawyer Alexa Culver from RSK Wilding to unpick these updates, and hears why she says Labour’s net gain changes are a ‘wound’ to nature markets ‘but not a fatal one’.

For this year’s final episode, ENDS Report deputy editor Tess Colley also looks back at the biggest UK environmental moments in Labour’s second year of government.

PLUS: South East Water blames its own water sources following a two-week window where customers had to boil their water, the House of Lords has slammed the government’s response to its waste crime inquiry, and PFAS monitoring methods underestimate the true scale of forever chemical pollution, a cross-party group of MPs have been told.

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