Environmental group Friends of the Earth is considering launching a legal challenge against the government over the recently published National Planning Policy Framework.

FoE claims ministers failed to carry out a strategic environmental assessment on its new planning rules. It says the new document, published earlier this week, threatens the climate and environment, arguing it “promotes fracking, holds the door open for future coal, and makes it difficult for wind power projects to get off the ground”.

The government “failed to carry out a ‘strategic environmental assessment’ of the plans, leaving the public in the dark over the major environmental impacts of the new changes, and whether less damaging alternatives have been considered, discarded or considered at all”, it added.