A Developer’s Guide To Guaranteeing Biodiversity Net Gain
Part of this act is called Biodiversity Net Gain, a legal requirement that will affect all development projects being rolled out across the UK. According to this legislation, developers must be able to provide at least a 10% biodiversity net gain that can be maintained for a minimum of three decades.
This BNG requirement has made development proposals necessarily more complex, requiring four stages of mitigation to prove that they can meet the biodiversity target. These steps consist of avoidance, minimisation, onsite restoration, and offsetting.
But what does all of this mean in practice, and what should developers bear in mind, going forward, as they adapt to the biodiversity legislation?
Here are some important points to consider, including helpful suggestions regarding the achievement of that crucial 10% gain.
Why Is The BNG Legislation A Positive Step?
The most obvious benefit of BNG and the Environment Act is the restoration of native flora and fauna across the UK. Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, British biodiversity has fallen by a dramatic extent compared to other countries across the globe, and this shocking decrease can trigger not only an “ecological crisis” but a range of related problems that will affect human beings as well as wildlife.
In fact, according to the WHO, many vital aspects of life can be affected by a loss of biodiversity, including “livelihoods, income, net migration”; indirectly, a loss of biodiversity can even contribute to political conflict. In the UK, this could include a lack of agricultural jobs, leading to increased unemployment in rural areas across the country. Availability of natural resources, such as wood, fresh water, and minerals could also be severely affected, and popular recreational activities such as birdwatching and fishing could become non-existent if the trend were to continue.
This is, of course, in addition to the irreparable decimation of our native plant and animal species, which represents a tragic loss, not only to our current generation, but to all successive generations.
By placing a firm focus on restoring biodiversity, the BNG legislation will work to repair the damage that has been over the past 150 years and restore the health of our local environments.
Creating A Planning Proposal In Line With BNG
As mentioned above, any proposals for planning permission should now seek to implement the BNG legislation in a four-tiered hierarchy. By following this ranking system, developers can help to ensure their proposal will be met with success, and also that it can be implemented more quickly and effectively.
The first and simplest stage is avoidance. This means steering clear of any potential development sites that could pose a threat to biodiversity, such as areas of woodland or moor that provide a home for a wide range of insects, birds, animals, and plants.
The second stage is minimisation. In this phase of planning, the developers would take as many precautions as possible to lessen the impact of their construction on the proposed site. This would include devising methods to decrease the amount of time spent on the building work, and restricting the extent of the development. Including these measures in the early stages will help to prevent any serious obstacles arising when the construction is already well under way.
The third stage in the hierarchy is onsite restoration, by which the developer makes quantifiable efforts to restore or develop habitats impacted by their scheme. This step is crucial if the first two stages were unable to be adequately met.
Lastly, the fourth tier is offsetting, which consists of the various reparative measures a developer must take to make up for any damage or negative impact they have caused. This can either be done on the development site itself, or, if that is not possible for practical reasons, it should be done off-site – regardless of the location, this offsetting process must ensure a 10% biodiversity net gain.
How Do You Achieve BNG As A Developer?
The simplest and least stressful way to ensure that your development achieves its 10% BNG is to enlist the services of professionals who have an in-depth understanding of ecology. Not only will they understand what it will take to reach your biodiversity net gain, but they will be able to advise on a range of related areas, including any potential legal ramifications. They can also provide essential skills during the development process, ranging from writing reports to providing practical solutions to environmental management issues.
How Do You Calculate Biodiversity Net Gain?
Many developers may be worried that the introduction of the BNG legislation will lead to different sets of seemingly arbitrary restrictions being implemented from one council to another. However, this is not the case.
There is more than one metric for measuring biodiversity but the most commonly used will most likely be the DEFRA 3.1 metric, making it simple for planning officers to assess net gain and loss for each project.
To do this, they have to take a few essential factors into consideration. These include:
- The kind of habitat located on and surrounding the proposed development site.
- The size of the habitats.
- The current state of the habitats.
Helping them in their determinations will be the results of the preliminary ecology survey which will have been conducted beforehand as part of a developer’s planning proposal. These surveys highlight any habitats that cannot be replaced and any protected species that may be living on the site. Depending on the species, this could then require further surveys specific to that animal, whether it is a supposed population of bats or great crested newts.
The biodiversity net gain will then be calculated using biodiversity credits or units.
In order to determine whether or not your development has achieved the legally mandated 10% gain, surveys of the development site must be taken before and after the project has been undertaken.
If your biodiversity score is higher after the work has been completed, then you will have reached the required net gain. However, it’s not enough to have a high enough score, there also needs to be demonstrable evidence that this score is likely to be maintained for at least the next 30 years. As a result, it’s vital that you factor longevity into your biodiversity enhancing strategies, following the advice of your enlisted experts to ensure the success of your project – and of your restored or enhanced habitats.