On Thursday 21 January 2021, we held a webinar to explore the policy and practice of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). This emerging area has been signalled in the draft Environment Bill as a condition on all planning in England, meaning new development has to deliver a 10% uplift in biodiversity value. Over the past year interest in BNG has sky-rocketed, but many questions remain over its impact and implementation.

A number of questions were raised during our Biodiversity Net Gain webinar on 21 January and we have summarised the main ones below.

Questions about the DEFRA Metric Model

The biodiversity of a site is quantified using the DEFRA Metric – a calculator that uses habitat type, area, condition, ecological connectivity and strategic significance to assign a number of units to a site. Metric 3.0 is due to come out in Spring 2021, which will lose the ‘connectivity’ input, although it will gain a GIS data import facility amongst other things.

The Baseline for the development site will need to be calculated at the date of grant of planning consent, however this could change with Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) being open to arrange an alternative date, based on the Preliminary Ecological Appraisal.

BNG will work on a supply and demand basis, price per unit will change dependent on location and demand. Proximity to the development will affect price of BUs, the further away the more expensive due to the metric penalising for distance from the site (DEFRA metric 3.0). Each BNG is bespoke, but with the underlying rule being that the habitat created should be as best a reflection as possible of the one being removed. The size of the habitat to be created can be calculated by using the metric and specific ecology input. The metric is to be used in tandem with an ecologists review to:

-          Quantify the baseline biodiversity of the development site

-          Quantify the baseline biodiversity of the off-set site.

-          Quantify the uplift in biodiversity of the off-set site at time intervals

Habitat Creation

A landowner will be able to create a habitat bank or ‘nature reserve’ on their land and register the additional biodiversity units created. It is the increase in biodiversity that becomes available to offset. Therefore a site with a high level of existing biodiversity may prove hard to enhance. The closer the habitat creation to the development site the better from a development point of view as the metric scores down off-set sites that are further away. There are rewards for habitat creation in advance. Depending on the habitat creation that is decided, the involvement of the local community is at the discretion of either party involved in the deal – for example if the landowner chooses,  the habitat creation could involve community tree planting, or be in partnership with a local school.

Both onsite and offsite BNG offsetting is possible and most schemes will include an element of both.

Taxation

How biodiversity units will be taxed is still under debate. Income tax, capital gains tax and VAT will need to be reviewed on a case by case basis.

We hope you enjoy listening to this presentation. Please contact Ellie Bird if you would like to subscribe to our research or be invited to future webinars and events. 

To find out more about what biodiversity net gain means in a planning context and discuss whether there actually is clarity around the new policy, watch our latest vlog. In addition, our research briefing note on the building blocks of BNG is available here.