Government considers extending 10% biodiversity gain requirement to close loopholes

[Alan Ambrose]

Is this the next step after self build 106 agreements?

Government considers extending 10% biodiversity gain requirement to close loopholes

The government is considering broadening the range of development that is required to deliver minimum improvements in biodiversity, under a second phase of the biodiversity net gain policy which could be rolled out in coming months.

https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1893464/government-considers-extending-10-biodiversity-gain-requirement-close-loopholes

 

[Benpointer]

I can't access the article.  Does it suggest removing the self-build exemption for BNGs?

[Alan Ambrose]

Apologies, I can't reasonably copy much of it here, but "concerns have been increasing in recent months among some commentators that a series of exemptions to the policy, such as for self- and custom-build schemes and projects affecting less than 25 sq m of habitat, have allowed applicants to get round the rules" and "applicants may be attempting to game the system by starting construction without planning permission and then submitting retrospective applications".

 

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me as I can't imagine those two categories account for a lot of applications or a lot of houses.

 

"get round the rules" is a bit steep as that's what the rules say duh ... but I wonder whether some LPAs are cooking up a scheme to tax self builds given that self builds get (central governement mandated) CIL exemptions and BNG exemptions.

 

[LnP]

12 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

 "applicants may be attempting to game the system by starting construction without planning permission and then submitting retrospective applications".

 

If the suggestion is that developers are doing that so that the baseline has less habitat, I don't think that would work, because (quote from here).

 

Within Schedule 14 of the Environment Act, which sets out the biodiversity gain condition for development, measures are included that allow planning authorities to recognise any habitat degradation since 30th January 2020 and to take the earlier habitat state as the baseline for the purposes of biodiversity net gain. In order to ascertain the habitats present and their condition on 30th January 2020, aerial imagery or data sets from that time could be used. 30th January 2020 is the relevant date as it was the day the Bill entered Parliament.

[Alan Ambrose]

Ah, this is one of the organisations hoping to make a bunch of money from this reg. I see the numberer £150m mentioned...

 

https://environmentbank.com/

 

Environment Bank’s Culver says the firm typically has, at any one time, live enquiries, which indicate interest in more than £150 million worth of offset sites. But, she says, there has been a mismatch between this “extremely healthy pipeline and the challenge of actually transacting”, with only “several” sales so far completed.

 

That is, they're off to a slower start than they wanted in extracting money from the system.