Biodiversity Net Gain

The consultation on biodiversity net gain (BNG) regulations and implementations was launched in January 2022 and ran for 12 weeks.  On 21 February 2023, the Government published the results of this consultation, which covered 3 main areas as summarised below.

Part 1: The Scope of BNG for TCPA Schemes

Exceptions

    • The Environment Act 2021 already makes exemptions for permitted development and urgent crown development.  The biodiversity metric allows for temporary impacts that can be restored within two years to be excluded from calculations as well as awarding existing sealed surfaces (such as tarmac or existing buildings) a zero score.  In addition to the above, the Government intents to make exemptions for development impacting a de minimis habitat area of 25m2 or 5m for linear habitats (such as hedgerows), householder applications, biodiversity gain sites, small-scale self-build and custom housebuilding.

    • Opportunities to secure proportionate on-site biodiversity enhancements will remain throughout planning policy.

Statutory Designated Sites

    • It is not intended to introduce an exemption for development on statutory sites designated for nature conservation.  Policy and guidance will be used to prevent BNG from being used as a justification for otherwise unacceptable development on such sites.

Irreplaceable Habitat

    • The Government will introduce secondary legislation to set out a clear definition of irreplaceable habitats and list those habitats considered irreplaceable.  This legislation will be used to dis-apply the 10% net gain requirement and to apply separate information requirements that can be used by Local Authorities in determining planning applications.

Part 2: Applying BNG to Different Types of Development

Phased Development and Subsequent Applications

    • Additional BNG information that sets out how gain will be achieved across the whole site will be required on a phased basis, subject to a pre-commencement condition requiring the approval of a gain plan prior to the commencement of each phase.  This is intended to leave discretion for local planning authorities to decide on the spread of gains throughout the phases;

    • For minerals applications, the Government has agreed that reviews of old minerals permissions (ROMPs) should remain out of scope for BNG and those appropriate ecological outcomes can be achieved through existing policy and discussions with mineral planning authorities;

    • For S.73 applications, the Government intends that an updated biodiversity gain plan should be required for applications that would result in a change to the post-development biodiversity value where the original permission was granted after the commencement of the mandatory BNG.

Small Sites

    • Small sites are defined as residential schemes of 1-9 dwellings on a site area of less than 1 hectare or an unknown number on a site area of less than 0.5 hectares and less than 1,000m2 of non-residential floor space.

Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP)

    • The requirement for BNG will be in place no later than November 2025 and projects will be encouraged to adopt it on a voluntary basis before then.

Part 3: How Mandatory BNG will Work for TCPA

Unit Trading and Credit System

    • Natural England will sell statutory biodiversity credits which will be facilitated through a digital sales platform.  An indicative credit price is to be released around May 2023 with this being intentionally uncompetitive.  Any revenue generated by Natural England will be invested in strategic habitat creation and enhancement projects.

Biodiversity Gain Site Register

    • Natural England will be responsible for establishing and maintaining the register.

Reporting and Monitoring

    • The planning enforcement regime will be the principal way of enforcing the delivery of BNG.

Daniel Gender-Sherry