From November 2023, the Environment Act 2021 will amend the Town and Country Planning Act to force developers to provide a biodiversity increase of at least 10% for their projects. If this can't be done on the site itself, it should be done locally (off-site) or via the purchase of national credits.
The law, and it's metric for working everything out are complex.
The site's and projected finished diversity must be carefully assessed;
Distinctiveness x Condition x Habitat = Biodiversity Units (per hectare (10,000m2)
This figure is multiplied by;
x Difficulty (to reproduce the desired habitat) x Time (for the habitat to develop)
The uplift in diversity should be guaranteed for 30 years. The maintenance and development of the sites in the scheme should all be factored in managed through a Bio Enhancement Management Plan (BEMP). The site providing the diversity increase is monitored regularly during the first ten years and then every five years.
As basic example, let's imagine a development on half a hectare (5,000m2) of farm land in poor condition: That's in the Low habitat band in poor condition = 2 points per hectare (see table below). For our half hectare, just 1 point.
The developer would need to ensure the end result of the work provided 1.1 points or in other words added 10% worth of biodiversity.
Those 1.1 worth of credits could be generated by 611m2 of similar grade local farmland being upgraded to good board leaf woodland;
Good Woodland = 18 points per hectare.
So 1 point = 555.5m2,
Our 1.1 points would need 611m2
Councils need trained ecologist to carry out these assessments and a vision for what can be achieved with potential funding for local development.
Without these, busy councils without the resources risk the true value of plots being undermined and developers buying up cheaper national credits leaving local residents with all the buildings but none of the biodiversity.
Know more than we do? Know of any examples? We'd love to hear from you!
Drop us a mail at office@midsussexclimatecoalition.com
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