Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Willis of Summertown Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 88 in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, and the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, for their support in adding their names to the amendment.

The amendment very much builds on the amendment just discussed. It simply aims to ensure that spatial development strategies include provision for publicly accessible green and blue spaces for local communities. This would empower planning authorities at the strategic level to make accessible green and blue spaces routine rather than coincidental. Communities currently face a postcode lottery in being able to benefit from access to nature and sports fields. The reasons for access to nature and blue and green spaces in cities are well rehearsed. We know that they provide myriad social, economic and health upsides for people, as well as strengthening urban climate resilience and creating opportunities for wildlife.

In Committee, the Government made it clear that they recognise the importance of blue and green spaces, the benefits they bring and their intent to maximise them in cities, all of which is extremely welcome. However, in all responses in Committee, the Minister concluded that provisions in the National Planning Policy Framework and the yet-to-be-published national development planning policies are sufficient to provide green and blue spaces, therefore making a statutory footing unnecessary. But Peers made the point that it is not just about any green space; it is its accessibility to people that is critical. This is the point that is made in the Government’s own, really quite excellent accessible green space standard, published by Natural England in 2025. In this standard, Natural England—and the Government through it—made the point that it committed to providing access to good-quality blue and green spaces for every citizen within walking distance of their home.

The reality is, however, that without these strong provisions, developers often see the delivery and placement—and it is the placement I really want to emphasise here—of blue and green space as optional, with the voluntary provisions of the green infrastructure framework not leading to consistent delivery of quality spaces in the right places. In fact, Natural England’s own data shows that 87% of the UK population have no accessible local green space within 300 metres of their home.

In many cities, the emerging evidence indicates that the location of new green space provision is occurring, but it is making the inequalities in access to green space worse. Looking at the mapped evidence from the most populated English cities outside London—Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, for example—over the past four years, between 2020 and 2024, and using the most up-to-date land cover information, it is clear that significantly more areas of blue and green space have been created in rich parts of the cities. Up to 9% more have been created in categories 9 and 10 as measured by the index of multiple deprivation—the wealthiest parts—than in areas of high deprivation, categories 1 and 2. This is making already large inequalities in access to green space in these cities even greater. To put it bluntly, without a strategic steer in legislation, developers and local authorities are prioritising, intentionally or unintentionally, the delivery of green space in wealthier areas.

On such an important issue, we need to understand where the results from the Government’s own green infrastructure mapping database support the evidence and show us that the NPPF is actually working to protect and enhance access to green and blue spaces in the right places. I would therefore appreciate it if the Minister could write to me, having asked her team to query this database to examine the change in doorstep, local and neighbourhood standards for green space over the past five years for the most populated cities in the UK: London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. According to the answer, I will then decide whether to bring this back at Third Reading to test the opinion of the House.

I hope the Government agree that this amendment is pragmatically worded: it continues to allow flexibility for local authorities to do what is best for their area and their communities. This simple amendment would cost the Government nothing, but it would provide a clear mechanism to deliver a commitment for accessible green space, ensuring, not least, that the Government’s own priorities for access to green space can be met.