Biodiversity Net Gain – World Leading or World Failing

Since BNG was launched in February this self-titled “world leading” legislation by Natural England has been anything but straightforward.

In theory this legislation when taken at face value is a beautiful approach to making the world a better place to retain and create habitats. But this holistic rather than practical approach couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Landscape Service has been delivering BNG as a service since its implementation, including metric completion, habitats plans and 30 year maintenance schedules. Predominantly our work has covered smaller sites where it seems most of the issues occur and the guidance lacks clarity.

Below I have highlighted some (not all) major unresolved issues that are not only causing frustration with the consultants who deliver BNG, but are having a dramatic effect on housing delivery and the planning process.

We have raised the following multiple times with the Biodiversity Net Gain Advice Team at Natural England and the principal advisors. We have either received copy and pasted guidance as a response or been completely ignored.

Private Garden

An ongoing issue up and down the country for both private consultants and local authorities, is the lack of clarity in the guidance but also the huge contradiction of the definition of “private garden”

On the .gov website (link below) “understanding biodiversity net gain”?there is guidance on how to deliver BNG. it repeatedly tells developers to?“create or enhance on-site site habitat”,?which you would think is the whole purpose of BNG.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-biodiversity-net-gain#creating-enhancing-and-maintaining-habitats-to-deliver-bng

However, following the latest guidance Natural England are increasingly trying to force developers?not?to create or enhance any on-site habitats on any privately owned land. Yes, you read that right, Natural England are actually telling developers?not?to enhance any existing habitats, plant any new trees or create any new habitats such as wildflower meadow, green roofs, etc.

The reason for this (they say) is that they can’t take any responsibility for what a new homeowner may do with the space and any potential removal they may carry out. This is obviously a very negative approach to habitat creation. This will just push most developments straight towards purchasing off-site or statutory credits. But I’m sure this cash cow is just a happy coincidence.

This is also quite ironic, as on Natural England’s homepage one of their main sayings is?“We help to protect and restore our natural world”.

You can keep any existing habitat as part of the proposed site in the metrics figures, but you just can’t create any habitats. Which is clearly just ridiculous as there is nothing stopping a new homeowner from removing any existing habitats either!

So Natural England’s view is, what’s the point in planting any trees or creating a wildflower meadow as someone might just remove it one day. It’s a shame Natural England didn’t stop and think for one minute, and assume a new homeowner may just want to make their garden a better place for wildlife! Surely it’s better to maximize habitat creation with the view some might be removed, rather than not creating any at all. But this approach would reduce the need to purchase off-site off and expensive statutory credits from the government where the cost doubles of course!

This was never a problem before BNG when following landscape planning conditions, Ironically BNG is now creating poorer landscapes than what were being created before its implementation. So much for Natural England’s?“on-site first”?approach.

We now have some planning officers not willing to make a call either way on BNG plans until Natural England gets their house in order and confirms what advice to follow, as the guidance completely contradicts itself and is anything but clear. Let’s hope logic prevails and Natural England encourages people to plant new trees and create new habitats. Otherwise there will not be a single tree planted in a private development as part of BNG for the rest of time in England!

400% not 10%

10% is the golden figure we are all told to achieve. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The 10% does not relate to a literal increase in habitats but the comparison in units between the existing site and the proposed site.

A site before development (baseline) is recorded for habitats and the measurements are populated in the metric, this then produces a certain number of units. The same is done for the proposed site and this also produces a certain number of units. The difference between the units has to be a minimum of 10%.

However, what makes up these units and the increase required for certain soft landscaping is not 10%. For instance, to replace a removed tree of the exact same size requires 4 new trees to be planted in its place to meet BNG requirements, that’s 400%. The same is for other habitats such as wildflower, hedges, etc. It's not a literal 10% increase in landscaping, but a 10% increase in the units given to a site. The team behind BNG have actually re-invented what the definition of percentage means in the world of mathematics! We did query this multiple times with the Biodiversity Net Gain advice team at Natural England and the principle adviser. It took 4 months to get a generic response.

Small Site Metric Vs Statutory (large) Site Metric

There are 2 types of metric for BNG. A small sites metric which is a simpler version to complete and a large sites metric which is more complex.

The large sites metric produces a unit total for both the existing and proposed sites, and a unit short fall or increase which allows you to calculate the off-site cost if required. The small sites metric however doesn’t produce any information relating to a sites units. So, if you don’t meet the required 10% you have to transfer all the information into the large sites metric to see the unit shortfall. Which not only doubles your workload, but renders the small sites metric completely useless.

Also, the small and large sites metric aren’t like for like. It’s harder to achieve 10% on the small sites metric as it doesn’t allow you to state an existing tree's condition, it rates all trees the same regardless of condition.

However on the large sites metric you can, for instance if you have a site with poor quality trees, put the figures straight into the large sites metric where the bassline will be lower and easier to achieve a 10% net gain.

Also, if you have a dead or diseased tree these have to be compensated in the same way as healthy trees. We have queried this with the Natural England advice team and taking into account their response time I would expect to hear back sometime in the new year.

When the February version of the small sites metric was published we discovered it didn’t even work. There was a backend issue with the metric which meant the 10% formula was being directed to another cell. It begs the question who even checks the guidance and metric to ensure it's even usable before publishing.

Compensation

When looking to compensate for habitats onsite you can only really compensate for the same habitat type. For instance tree loss has to be compensated with new trees. If you cut down some trees you can’t make this up by putting in more hedging.

With trees, anything removed after January 2020 will have to be compensated for, regardless of who cut down the trees, who owned the site at the time, if they fell over in a storm or died, they all have to be compensated for unfortunately.

We are increasingly being brought into the process a lot earlier which is good. But BNG can have a dramatic effect on a site making it completely unviable. The Landscape Service has recently started running a free 30 minute BNG feasibility on potential projects. We review the site and look into any habitats that may result in an off-site payment, such as any large trees or irreplaceable habitats.

We then run the numbers and produce a rough cost of what the developer may be looking at for an off-site payment. The downside is the developer may have another fee to consider. The upside is that a site with any valuable existing habitats may devalue the site as developable land, which can be taken into account when preparing an offer to buy land.

The main thing to consider when looking at a site is the bigger the tree the bigger the problem. Anything more than a 30cm DBH will be an issue to compensate on site.

This leads me to think, perhaps a better title for this article would have been?BNG - World Leading Environment Tax.

I hope this has been insightful and I welcome any comments.