Michael Donnelly

The future of a financial turnaround plan for Thames Water is in doubt after the environment secretary wrote to water regulator Ofwat to say she is “not convinced” the proposal is “good enough for consumers or the environment”.

Scotland’s regulatory framework around invasive non-native species (INNS) is “not fully effective”, potentially hampering efforts to deliver the Scottish government’s biodiversity restoration objectives, a report by Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) has concluded.

The Treasury should take the “pricing” of nature into decision-making “very seriously”, academics are due to recommend in their final report in a review commissioned by the government.

Government agency Natural England will not be able to take development viability concerns into account when setting the rate of the new nature restoration levy, newly-published regulations have revealed.

Progress is “largely off track” for 70% of targets identified in Northern Ireland’s Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has found, with the watchdog warning that, without an upgrade the devolved nation’s “failing wastewater system”, it will be “difficult to reduce pressures from pollution or to enable sustainable development”.

Any further weakening of the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate would “severely undermine” prospects of achieving the UK’s 2030 nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has warned.

The next prime minister must “reset” the government’s approach to nature recovery after “significant regressions in environmental legal protections” under the current administration, a letter put together by a coalition of over 80 conservation groups, academics and businesses has said.

The High Court has upheld a council’s decision not to determine a planning application because an enforcement notice is already in force for the site, rejecting the landowner's arguments that the introduction of the national grey belt policy was a “fundamental change” that should have been considered in the decision-making process.

The government expects to “strengthen” farm regulation “in some places”, but there will also be a review of the environmental laws that apply to agricultural businesses to remove “outdated rules”, DEFRA’s newly-published Farming Roadmap has revealed.

MPs have asked the government to set out how work on the UK’s next climate adaptation plan is progressing, in the face of record June temperatures that have put pressure on housing, public services and infrastructure.