The Fingleton Review – commissioned by the UK Government to look at potential reforms of the civil and defence nuclear regulatory system – is recommending that nature protections should be weakened. It argues that these protections impose unnecessary costs on developers who are pursuing infrastructure projects.

The Chancellor has asked the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, to prepare a plan to take forward the Fingleton Review recommendations. If this plan includes those recommendations, it could be fatal for the places that nature’s recovery relies on. It’s a short-sighted and flawed idea which prioritises cost-cutting for a few developers while exacerbating the nature crisis.

Say NO to this now before it is too late.

Write to Ed Miliband to urge him to reject three of the key recommendations in the Fingleton Review that put nature especially at risk.

The Fingleton Review was commissioned by the UK Government to assess how nuclear energy could be delivered more cheaply and quickly. The Review was conducted largely by people who work in and around the nuclear industry. Environmental experts were excluded from the review team.

The absence of environmental experts can be seen in the recommendations from the Review which relate to nature. Recommendations 11 and 12 propose amending the Habitats Regulations so that developers don’t have to worry about avoiding harm to nature sites when they build nuclear plants. Recommendation 19 proposes removing a duty on local authorities and other public bodies to further the conservation and public access purpose of National Parks and National Landscapes, which the Review authors felt imposed undue burdens on developers.

These conclusions were reached on the basis of faulty evidence. The review minimised the impact that nuclear power stations can have on the natural environment. This extends far beyond their built footprint, and can include significant strain on water and coastal ecosystems. The Review team also failed to consider how protected sites don’t just protect listed sites and species, but underpin wider nature recovery efforts, and the climate progress reliant on nature recovery.

The Review also considerably overstated the costs that following environmental rules incurs for developers, highlighting an acoustic deterrent designed to protect fish which was originally proposed by the developers themselves. The fact that this choice came from a project running 14 years late and £18 billion over budget due to a series of developer errors unconnected to the environment is nowhere mentioned.

When announcing the Budget on 26 November 2025, the Chancellor accepted the Fingleton Review recommendations in principle and instructed Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to prepare an implementation plan by the end of February 2026.

Then, in a speech on 1 December 2025 the Prime Minister said he agreed with all of the Fingleton Review recommendations and asked the Business Secretary to apply them to sectors beyond nuclear in the upcoming Industrial Strategy. This means the harmful recommendations could be extended beyond potential new nuclear energy sites - so it’s important to make sure that DESNZ rejects this first and ensure that nature has a voice at any future discussion of industrial strategy at the Cabinet table.

Whilst it remains important for the UK Government to implement a variety of measures to meet its legal obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these developments – whether they be for nuclear power infrastructure or anything else – must be delivered without loopholes for developers to avoid increased harm to our natural environment, especially to some of the UK’s best remaining protected areas for nature.

People will suffer as well as wildlife. The recommendations in the Review will make natural spaces less safe from development and more vulnerable to damage and loss. These spaces might be close to where you live, or special landscapes that you visit and care about.

The UK has already lost more biodiversity than any other country over the last few decades. The risks of environmental damage through these recommendations will also have significant knock-on impacts for economic stability, which affects everyone through the cost of living. Allowing the natural world to be neglected in this way will only benefit a handful of developers who can cut costs by bending the rules in future.

Yes. But there are just a few short weeks to see off this major threat.

In the last year, the UK Government has targeted nature and wildlife: calling spiders, bats and newts 'blockers'; and getting rid of and weakening legal safeguards and policies that are supposed to help nature recover. This goes against all evidence, and the public's views that nature protection is necessary for everyone. Evidence shows a healthy environment underpins our economy and our wellbeing, and that building with nature in mind does help to ensure development is high quality and sustainable.

Nature lovers may be feeling bruised after the recent passage of the Planning & Infrastructure Act 2025. Unfortunately, the government made sure it was impossible to stop but, after lots of work by environmental organisations, campaigners and the public it ended up being slightly less damaging than it might have been.

Unlike the Planning & Infrastructure Act 2025, the Fingleton recommendations are only proposals at this stage. They have not yet been taken forward. This is your chance to defend the Habitat Regulations, and stop more damaging laws like a second Planning Bill, before it is launched. We can still nip this in the bud, together.

Not yet. The UK Government is only responsible for energy consulting in England, so initially the Fingleton Review recommendations would only apply to nuclear projects there.

However, should these recommendations be adopted by the UK government now, and more widely applied to other forms of development, this policy shift could eventually be felt across the UK and therefore we recommend that nature lovers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland contact their elected representatives in the Devolved Governments to ask them firmly to oppose these recommendations.

This isn’t about nuclear energy and whether or not it’s a good idea. This is about stopping a real threat that the natural world will lose the legal protections it relies on in the face of ever increasing development pressure. The Prime Minister wants the Fingleton Review recommendations to apply to all sectors, so we must make sure recommendations 11, 12 and 19 are not part of any plans.