Delay to Biodiversity Net Gain Opens Opportunity to Build in Biodiversity

THE GOVERNMENT‘s announcement that Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) will be delayed means small and medium sized construction businesses will be collectively sighing in relief, says the NFB.

The House Builders Association (HBA), the housing arm of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), has been the most prominent supporter of BNG and hopes that its five-year ‘building in biodiversity’ campaign can now be thoroughly explored for implementation.

Richard Beresford, NFB Chief Executive

Richard Beresford, Chief Executive of the NFB, said: “We have worked incredibly hard on strategies to ensure BNG can work in practice and the announced delay gives us a chance to work more closely with the Government to implement onsite solutions. By building in biodiversity, we can ensure development acts to grow habitats and stimulate species recovery, rather than acting as a block on wildlife corridors via offsetting credits.”

After a five-year campaign for onsite solutions, and speaking to the Environment Committee regarding the Environment Bill before it became an Act, the HBA wrote to ministers in July 2023. The HBA was concerned that BNG was going to harm SMEs the most because they were unable to set enough land aside to deliver the narrow vision of habitats set out by the BNG calculator.

It proposed three solutions, with Option 3 being a modified version of the offers made before BNG was legislated for in the Environment Act.

1. For developments of up to fifty homes, require as much onsite BNG as possible but disregard the ten percent expectation
2. As above, but include onsite fabric and design solutions in the metric
3. A two-year trial which extends the SSM to fifty homes, including fabric and design onsite solutions in the NBG calculation but capping them at half the BNG requirement, e.g., 5% if 10% is required (preferred option)

The HBA offered several sites for Option 3 because members recognised that industry needed to prove the onsite concept worked.

Build in Biodiversity

Rico Wojtulewicz, NFB Head of Housing & Planning Policy

Rico Wojtulewicz, NFB Head of Housing and Planning Policy, said: “The evidence is clear, if you build in biodiversity, you improve biodiversity outcomes and our proposal achieves this in practice, rather than going down the offsetting route. This means we build habitats into the fabric of the development and site design, potentially having it led by local policies, such as Supplementary Planning Document (SPD).

“Some councils have already got this guidance, for example, Stratford on Avon’s Part N SPG and so if we can attribute weight to onsite solutions in the BNG calculator, we can support all species with local strategies, not blanket national ones.

“This means swifts, which roost in winter, get a unique strategy rather than a catch all outcome. Species reintroduction is given the best fighting chance through targeted support. All development, not just housebuilding can contribute, and we start to develop an ecological industry which is truly world leading, to go along with our already world leading biodiversity research.

The HBA has a guidance document on some of the ways we can achieve this, which ministers in DEFRA and DLUHC were sent. It sets out a vision for making BNG world leading and hope it inspires a conversation we have been having for half a decade.”

The guidance document is accessed via the NFB website.

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