Biodiversity and Planning Permission – Update
The Environment Bill has been recently updated to increase the level of biodiversity on sites and ensure that all sites meet set biodiversity requirements. Find out more about Biodiversity and Planning Permission…
Previously, Local Planning Authorities were only able to impose planning conditions that were in line with the National Policy Planning Framework. However, the ultimate decision of whether to impose those conditions or not ultimately rested with the Local Planning Authority.
Now, a mandatory condition is being imposed on all development projects.
The Environment Bill now requires any development site to establish a 10% biodiversity net gain before any work is carried out on the site. The assessment of what 10% should amount to and how it will be addressed must be set out in a report by the developer and agreed with the Local Planning Authority. If, for any reason, the 10% gain cannot be facilitated on the site, then it should be gained elsewhere – for example, by planting on neighbouring or council owned land. The Local Planning Authority would need to be consulted on this as the decision on whether a net gain on another site is acceptable would need to be approved by them.
ProHort recommends that your on-site ecology is surveyed as soon as possible and the assessment of what the 10% net gain will amount to is completed as soon as is reasonably practicable. This will mean that your development can be tailored to embed the 10% gain, rather than this being an afterthought, as this may end up being costly.
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