Three things happened in the first week of September that, between them, turn the Nature Restoration Fund from a policy into a procedure. On 1 September 2026 Defra, MHCLG and Natural England published the first user guidance on gov.uk — how a developer gets a levy quote, commits to pay, assumes liability and what happens if they don’t. On 2 September a Commons Delegated Legislation Committee agreed the draft Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026. On 3 September the House of Lords approved them too, though not without attaching a regret motion about viability. Back in June we said laying the regulations was a step towards the fund rather than the switch being flicked. The switch is now wired up. It still hasn’t been flicked — but we can now see exactly how it will work.
What Parliament did
The levy regulations are subject to the draft affirmative procedure, so both Houses have to approve them before they can be made. The Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee considered them on 2 September and agreed the motion without a division. In the Lords on 3 September, the government’s approval motion passed — but only after peers voted 41 to 29 for Lord Roborough’s amendment regretting that the regulations “will not require Natural England to take into consideration the financial viability of development”, and in particular the affordable housing, education, health and infrastructure contributions already loaded onto the same schemes. A regret amendment doesn’t stop an instrument; the motion as amended was agreed. As of 7 September the Commons had still to take the short formal approval motion that follows a committee’s decision — the last step before the regulations can be signed and given a commencement date. (Lords business, 3 September 2026)
The regulations sit alongside the Environmental Delivery Plans (Appropriate Prioritisation) Regulations 2026, which have been in force since 9 July.
The process, step by step
The useful document is Using the nature restoration levy. Read together with the overview guidance and the enforcement and appeals page, it gives a seven-stage process. None of it operates until an Environmental Delivery Plan (EDP) covering your site has been made and come into force.
- Get a quote. Through an online “nature restoration levy service” — which the guidance says will be piloted on a test-and-learn basis — you enter the development’s location and the number of units (dwellings), and the service prices it against the EDP’s charging schedule. A quote commits you to nothing, reserves nothing, and you can run as many as you like. You won’t get one at all if the development would exceed the EDP’s remaining capacity; capacity figures are to be published on gov.uk “at regular intervals”.
- Request to use the levy. Before you submit the planning application, you ask Natural England to accept the development into the EDP. Natural England checks eligibility, capacity and completeness. If it accepts, it issues a commitment certificate and books the capacity against your scheme.
- Submit the certificate with the planning application. The certificate tells the local planning authority that the impact covered by the EDP — for the first EDPs, nutrient pollution — can be disregarded for the relevant Habitats Regulations obligations. The LPA still has to deal with everything the EDP doesn’t cover. The commitment expires after six months if no application has been made, and the capacity goes back into the pool; you can immediately re-quote and re-request if capacity is still there.
- A statutory pre-commencement condition. Where permission is granted to a development using the levy, the regulations require a condition that the levy — in full, or the first instalment — is paid before work starts. EDPs may also carry their own conditions that the decision-maker is expected to apply.
- Assume liability. After permission and before commencement, somebody has to file an assumption of liability notice: usually the committed developer, but it can be anyone, and more than one person, jointly and severally. Natural England then issues a liability notice setting the amount, adjusted for inflation since the charging schedule came into force using the RICS CIL index, and the payment dates. Liability can be transferred with the new party’s consent; overdue sums stay with whoever was liable when they fell due. If nobody assumes liability before work starts, Natural England imposes it on the owners of material interests in the land — the freehold, or a lease with more than seven years to run — apportioned by value, plus a surcharge.
- Pay. An invoice follows the liability notice. Payment in full, or the first instalment where Natural England has published an instalment plan for that EDP, is what discharges the pre-commencement condition; Natural England tells the planning authority once it has the money. Later instalments are inflation-adjusted again at the point of payment. The liability is registered as a local land charge until the last instalment clears.
- Cancel, if it doesn’t happen. A commitment can be cancelled — and the capacity released — where no application is made within six months, permission is refused and not appealed, the permission lapses or is quashed, the EDP is revoked, or you simply decide not to proceed. Cancel it and you can no longer rely on the levy; the Habitats Regulations obligations come straight back.
The small print that bites
The enforcement page is where the regulations show their teeth, and it is worth knowing the numbers before anyone on site assumes the levy is a soft obligation.
| Failure | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Nobody assumes liability before commencement | Liability imposed on landowners, plus a surcharge of 2% of the levy or £300, whichever is greater |
| Payment 30 days overdue | 5% surcharge (minimum £300; none if the levy is under £1,000) |
| Still unpaid at 6 months / 12 months | Further 5% at each point, on the principal |
| Material change to the development not notified | Surcharge of £300 or 30% of the levy, whichever is lower (only where the recalculated levy is at least £300 higher) |
| Any overdue amount | Interest at 2.5 percentage points above Bank of England base rate, simple not compound |
| Development under way with an overdue amount | Warning notice (3–28 days), then a stop notice requiring work to cease until paid |
| Persistent non-payment | Injunctions, enforcement of the land charge, debt recovery |
There is a review route — 28 days from the liability notice to challenge the calculation or the apportionment, with Natural England answering within 21 days — and an appeal to the Environment Secretary on calculations, apportionment, surcharges, interest and warning or stop notices. Nothing falls due while a review or appeal is open.
What ministers said, and why it matters
Matthew Pennycook’s answers to the Commons committee fill in gaps the guidance leaves (Hansard, 2 September 2026):
- Your rate is locked when Natural England accepts your commitment. If the charging schedule later goes up, “the new rate will take effect only for future requests made to the EDP.” That makes the timing of the request, and the six-month expiry that follows it, a commercial decision rather than an administrative one.
- Full cost recovery, ringfenced. Charging schedules will be “based primarily on the cost of delivering the conservation measures”, consulted on as part of each EDP, and levy receipts can only be spent on that EDP’s measures and its administration. Natural England will decide whether to charge per dwelling or per hectare.
- No payments in kind. Offering a wetland site instead of cash is not something the regulations provide for.
- Voluntary, in almost all cases. Developers keep the option of the existing routes if the levy doesn’t “represent good value for money”; mandatory EDPs are reserved for exceptional, bespoke cases.
- The first EDP consultation is close. “In the very near future we will launch the consultation on the first EDP, which is on nutrient neutrality.” The Defra Secretary of State will decide whether to make it, and the government has committed to report back to Parliament on the first nutrient EDPs before any other kind is made — great crested newts are next in the queue.
In the Lords, Baroness Taylor confirmed that instalments will exist only where Natural England publishes an instalment plan for an EDP, and that the first instalment must be paid before commencement. Baroness Coffey told the House the first EDP would be for nutrient neutrality in Norfolk — the minister did not confirm the catchment, though the Broads and River Wensum are on Natural England’s published list of sixteen candidates. Two other contributions are worth logging: Baroness Parminter said a Wildlife Trust and local authority scheme in the Solent that had enabled around 2,500 homes had “effectively stopped” since EDPs were announced, and Lord Fuller put the going rate for phosphate credits at around £5,000 per dwelling. That second number is the one every levy charging schedule will be compared against.
What hasn’t changed
Nothing is live. Until an EDP for your catchment has been consulted on, approved and brought into force, nutrient neutrality applies exactly as it does today: a nutrient budget, mitigation secured, and a Habitats Regulations assessment the planning authority can rely on. The implementation plan is clear that third-party credit schemes can carry on selling credits and bespoke mitigation remains available; Natural England’s own Nutrient Mitigation Scheme will fold into the relevant EDP when it arrives. The local routes we have written about — Stour Environmental Credits in Kent, for instance — remain the way consents are actually moving this autumn.
What to do now
Three practical things. First, run the nutrient budget regardless: the levy quote will be priced on dwellings and location, but whether it is good value only becomes clear when you know what your scheme’s nitrogen or phosphorus load would cost to mitigate the current way. Second, if you are in a catchment where a draft EDP appears, read the charging schedule and the capacity figure together — a low rate with thin capacity is a race, and the six-month commitment window means you don’t want to request before the application is genuinely ready. Third, brief whoever runs the site: the levy is a pre-commencement condition backed by stop notices, surcharges and a land charge, not a contribution to be tidied up later.
NutrientMonkey gives you the budget for any of the affected catchments in your browser, so you have your own number before the first charging schedule lands. If you’d rather we ran it and produced the planning report, send us the site details.
Sources: Understanding the Nature Restoration Fund (gov.uk, 1 September 2026) · Using the nature restoration levy (gov.uk, 1 September 2026) · Nature restoration levy enforcement actions and appeals process (gov.uk, 1 September 2026) · Environmental Delivery Plans collection (gov.uk) · Draft Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026 — Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, Hansard, 2 September 2026 · Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026 — House of Lords business, 3 September 2026 · Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026 — UK Parliament SI tracker · Implementing the Nature Restoration Fund (Defra/MHCLG/Natural England, December 2025)