Mary Creagh CBE MP, Minister for Nature, with Mayor for the West Midlands Richard Parker in Coventry launching the West Midlands Nature Investment Hub
Place matters. Restoring nature, effective planning, decisions about land use, managing catchments – all depend on local factors. To successfully deliver our outcomes and make a real difference to people, Defra must operate effectively locally. This is crucial for everything we do – from improving water quality and mitigating flood risk, to supporting farmers to improve food security.
I'm Cate Buntrock, part of the Strategy and Delivery Team in Defra. In this post, I want to tell you about important work we are doing in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority – and what it's teaching us about a better way of working.
This is part of a programme of projects testing how Defra Group can deliver better outcomes by adapting the delivery of our functions and services to be more responsive to the needs and priorities of different local communities and places. It's also the first in a series of posts covering what we're doing with each partner area.
Our Place-Based Delivery Pathfinders
Defra has initiated a programme of Place-Based Delivery 'Pathfinder' projects in select locations. We are working in close partnership with four Combined Authorities and one National Park, testing how we can better integrate services, devolve decision-making, and align priorities – such as environment, planning, and growth – at the local level. Each Pathfinder is focused on different things, driven by the needs of the people and place, and shaped by local leadership.
Our partners are the Combined Authorities in the West Midlands (WMCA), York and North Yorkshire (YNYCA), Greater Manchester (GMCA), West of England (WECA), and the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA). We'll go into more detail on each in future posts.
We're using the learning from these Pathfinders to inform policy and improve delivery across the country. Testing at smaller scale is helping us develop more effective models for strengthening relationships, convening the right people, and enabling better outcomes – approaches that can then be applied in different contexts across the country.
A new way to connect investment with nature in the West Midlands
In the West Midlands, we're working to test how Defra Group – including Natural England, the Environment Agency, and the Forestry Commission – can collaborate with WMCA to develop and deliver a pipeline of projects aligned to the priorities in their Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
Today I joined Minister Mary Creagh, Mayor Richard Parker, and colleagues from the Combined Authority and across Defra Group in Coventry to mark an exciting milestone in that journey: the launch of the West Midlands Nature Investment Hub.
The Hub is a key output of the Defra-funded Local Investment in Natural Capital (LINC) programme, which completed earlier this year. LINC was designed to build the capability of local and regional government to attract private finance for local nature recovery.
Working through the Pathfinder has given us the opportunity to build on best practice and test new place-based delivery approaches on the ground. In the West Midlands, that has meant bringing together local government, environmental partners, businesses and investors around a shared goal: restoring nature while supporting sustainable growth.
The Hub seeks to address a key challenge: the Combined Authority is seeing strong local projects struggle to access funding because they are small, complex, or not yet 'investment ready'. At the same time, investors are increasingly interested in supporting nature-based solutions, but don't always know where to start. The Nature Investment Hub is designed to bridge that gap – a single place where projects that benefit nature can be shaped, packaged, and connected with potential investors.
Mary Creagh CBE MP, Minister for Nature, with Mayor for the West Midlands Richard Parker with representatives from West Midlands Combined Authority and DefraWhat the Hub will do
The Hub will help turn the ambition of WMCA's Local Nature Recovery Strategy into action. It will:
Develop a pipeline of high-quality, verified nature projects Support that pipeline to become investment-ready Connect projects with a range of funding sources – from large to small – including funding available through Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) frameworks Build confidence in the market for investing in natureThis is not about replacing public funding. It's about using public investment more effectively to unlock additional finance and deliver at greater scale.
Through the Pathfinder, we've been able to work closely with WMCA and partners to explore what this looks like in practice – from identifying priority habitats and understanding what investors need, to helping projects reach an 'investment ready' stage.
What we're learning so far
One of the biggest lessons from the West Midlands Pathfinder is just how much the characteristics of a place matter to success. Every area has its own environmental priorities, its own economic context, and its own networks of local delivery partners.
In the West Midlands, there is a strong track record of collaboration and a clear ambition to deliver greener growth across the region. The development of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy has successfully fostered that collaboration – but there is more we can do to strengthen shared vision-making and joined-up working across disciplines, sectors, and outcomes. The Nature Investment Hub builds on that foundation. Because it is rooted in place, it can bring together the right people in ways that national programmes often struggle to replicate.
This work has also highlighted potential opportunities to further strengthen Defra's relationship with Combined Authorities in the context of English Devolution. We're exploring how Defra Group funding streams – both direct and indirect – could be better aligned, consolidated, and made more flexible to support multi-outcome delivery, in line with strategic plans for each area.
Looking ahead
By testing new approaches through the Pathfinder, we're learning what works, what needs to change, and how we can apply these lessons elsewhere.
If successful, the West Midlands model could help inform similar approaches in other regions. We're already thinking about how to embed these lessons across Defra Group as a whole, in the longer term.
For me, one of the most encouraging aspects of this work has been seeing the genuine appetite for doing things differently – moving beyond individual projects towards a more strategic, place-based approach, and the real potential that holds for communities and our local partners.
Launching the Nature Investment Hub is a moment to celebrate. But it is also a starting point.
Over the coming months, we'll continue working with WMCA and partners to build the project pipeline, engage investors, and refine how the Hub operates in practice. Our goal is straightforward: to help create a system where investing in nature is simple, clear, and successful.
Because if we are to meet our environmental targets, we need to unlock new sources of funding and deliver at much greater scale – and that starts with initiatives like this, rooted in place and driven by partnership.
If your work has links to the Hub and you'd like to find out more, please contact the team at nature.hub@wmca.org.uk.
seen at 16:30, 2 July in Environment.