Image: surveyor sitting and making notes on notepad.
1. DEFRA’s commitment to the natural environment
DEFRA says it continues to prioritize on-site delivery and, in so doing, misses an opportunity to secure what they call impactful landscape-scale outcomes for nature.
There are still important particulars and directions that need to be worked out, but that is not stopping the interest of investors, landowners, and developers. Local planning authorities across the country are taking the initiative on biodiversity net gain and we very much welcome that.
2. £16.71m funding for Local Planning Authorities
This is fantastic because LPAs lie at the heart of the BNG system and play a key role in making sure BNG delivers something real and tangible for nature.
Their role is too often forgotten and taken for granted. If LPAs perform poorly, BNG simply can’t work. It is absolutely essential that LPAs be effectively resourced to allow them to do what needs to be done.
Nevertheless, LPAs still need more guidance regarding how mandatory BNG should interact with their pre-existing BNG policies. These policies are located in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), local plans, and other decision-making documents.
3. Credits and other Agri-Environment Schemes Favoured
It is of the utmost importance that offsetting schemes are set up in a way that allows for confidence to be had that they provide real, additional, and verifiable conservation and carbon outcomes. The current guidance documents may create a bit of uncertainty in the eyes of landowners because they only apply for a limited time (2 years). After that, we don’t know just what will happen to BNG or how it will interact with other existing or new schemes.
4. What Happens After 30 Years are Finished?
While it’s not possible to predict the policy landscape three decades later, there are clear signals from DEFRA that they are moving towards a regime where landowners might receive financial incentives to keep and manage BNG sites well beyond the time when they have any legal obligation to do so. This could be achieved, for instance, through tax breaks to make it more appealing to landowners, or by allowing landowners to carry out new BNG enhancements so that they have reason to manage the sites in an ecologically positive way.
Nonetheless, detail is still insufficient, so we would greatly appreciate a proactive and ongoing dialogue with the government about the ways in which financial compensation and incentives can be provided to landowners who wish to deliver and maintain the kinds of ecosystem services and assets enjoyed by every one of us.
Image: drone over grassland with mountains in the background.
5. Biodiversity Units can be sold anywhere in England, but what are the rules?
A national supply of units means there are no local distortions of unit pricing, and it encourages many more local authorities to bring forward land for biodiversity net gain. The metric incentivises local delivery of biodiversity net gain. It incentivises local delivery without making it compulsory for local planning authorities to use units they have supplied when they are making local decisions.
Ensuring that BNG does not become a bottleneck for planning consents is quite important, especially in places where there are challenges getting BNG to work at a local level. It would be much more useful if BNG could help to deliver sustainable development all across the country—recognising how important local delivery is, and at the same time, using the mechanism of BNG to deliver high-quality outcomes in places where local delivery is just not possible.
The policy permits landowners and developers to buy and sell units without a Section 106 Agreement or Conservation Covenant in place, as long as one is in place by the time the Biodiversity Gain Plan for their development is approved by the local planning authority, which is after planning permission has been granted.
LPAs (and responsible bodies) require more clarity to grasp what needs to be considered beforehand when planning for off-site biodiversity net gains through a legal agreement (s106 or conservation covenant). Much hinges on LPAs achieving a successful outcome. Yet they’re left with limited working examples to go by.
A developer will need to show that they have applied the mitigation hierarchy and exhausted local BNG options before seeking BNG further afield—and indeed resorting to the government’s Statutory Credits.
