URGENT
Write to your MP using our template...
The devastating planning bill that takes away nature protections:
Recently in April, Norfolk rejected a Cranswick mega-farm because of habitat laws, but this new bill lets councils ignore environmental harm. The CEO of Cranswick even admitted they’re lobbying for weaker planning rules to boost meat production. Cranswick’s chairman is even on the government’s Food Strategy Advisory Board.
The government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Part 3 & Schedule 4) will enable the acceleration of harm to nature, letting factory farm developers like Cranswick continue their aggressive expansion and trash whatever habitats – woods, meadows, wetlands, and streams that stand in their way.
This bill isn’t about housing—it’s about profit at nature’s expense.
Act now: Email your MP today demanding they scrap Part 3 & Schedule 4 of the Planning Bill before it’s too late.
Bear in mind that your MP may not respond to your letter or take it seriously unless you include your full name, full address and contact phone number.
(if this does not work,
the template is below
to copy & paste)
Email Template:
Dear (Insert MP name)
I am writing to express my grave concerns about the Planning and Infrastructure bill, which erases decades of environmental law. Part 3 and Schedule 4 of the Bill will weaken the protections under the existing system of protection for protected sites and species under the Habitats Regulations, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.
This bill weakens laws that stop factory farms from expanding near nature reserves, and lets developers pay to destroy habitats—putting species at risk of extinction.
Cranswick CEO Adam Couch is quoted as saying that the UK could produce even more meat if planning law were changed.
I am firmly against any expansion of the meat industry—we already have 1300 factory farms in England, and more meat is not the answer to food security.
The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, write that “the Bill threatens to cause unnecessary and irreparable ecological harm while simultaneously imposing additional costs, uncertainty and delays on developers due to the uncertainty around the nature and scope of the proposed Environmental Delivery Plans.”According to Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor Emeritus of economics at the University of Cambridge, “Part three of the bill will cause economic harm by introducing overlapping and clashing nature laws, and slowing development with complex viability-based levy systems that critically undermine the investment case for nature in the UK.”
I share your desire to increase housing and economic growth, but not at the expense of the environment and certainly not by making harmful developments like factory farms easier to approve.
I request that you vote against the planning and infrastructure bill as it is currently drafted and remove Part 3 and Schedule 4 from the bill.Thank you for your efforts.
Sincerely,
Insert: Name and Address
Sources:
1. Wild Justice legal opinion: https://wildjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Planning-and-Infrastructure-Bill-Opinion-29.4.25.pdf
2. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/24/planning-bill-would-allow-builders-to-pay-cash-to-trash-nature-say-uk-experts
3. https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/yorkshire/news/2138104-couchs-mission-to-feed-the-nation#
4. https://cieem.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CIEEM-Comment-on-Planning-and-Infrastructure-Bill-2025-FINAL.pdf
5. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/09/labours-agriculture-plans-will-increase-chicken-waste-in-rivers-say-campaigners
6. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/24/labour-nature-england-ecosystems-planning-bill-keir-starmer
7. https://cranswick.plc.uk/news/tim-smith-joins-new-government-food-strategy-advisory-board