The first two areas on the register for off-site biodiversity net gain (BNG) projects in England have faced criticism for excluding the location details of their boundaries.

These sites include a 3.2-ha area near Exeter and a 31.79-ha initiative near Brighton, that started on Feb. 14, 2024 and July 19, 2023 respectively.

Developers can purchase BNG off-site habitat units to compensate for nature impacts that cannot be offset on-site. Development projects in England have needed to achieve a net biodiversity improvement of at least 10% since February.

Natalie Duffus, a doctor of philosophy student at University of Oxford specialising in BNG, was excited to see the first sites on the platform in a significant step for the legislation, she told Carbon Pulse.

However, she questioned why the register only shared details of a single location point, rather than the boundary of each site.

“It was anticipated that there would be more comprehensive spatial data included with the offsets … This single grid reference does not tell us where each habitat parcel and linear feature is,” Duffus said.

“If we don’t know where each individual habitat parcel or linear feature is, there is no way to analyse the outcomes of off-site BNG, or to check for important things such as double counting of habitats,” she said.

The register has not yet enabled a way to calculate biodiversity uplift of the BNG unit, compared to the development site it is offsetting, or whether the uplift is even feasible, she said.

Ultimately, this means that interrogating the register to evaluate policy outcomes is “impossible”.

Andrew Rowe, director of off-site BNG specialists BioGains, said his company has worked with local county councils to achieve the “milestone” of registering the Exeter site “with several more coming soon”.

However, “more information is needed” on the register, adding that he was “in contact with Natural England about this”, in a post on LinkedIn.

Angus Walker, partner at law firm BDB Pitmans, noted the register does not show the body responsible for the planning agreement of the area.

Details on the area size, location, the length of agreement of at least 30 years, and target habitats are “useful”, but Walker asked whether the agreements should include the time taken to enhance the biodiversity in the land, also in a post on LinkedIn.

REGISTER DETAILS

The register so far has included baseline information of the recent condition of habitat types and their sizes, alongside planned habitat improvements.

For example, the Exeter site managers aims to boost nature in these habitat types, from inferior previous conditions:

Source: UK government’s biodiversity gain sites register

Landowners can sell off-site biodiversity units to developers, provided the habitat sites are registered, according to an article published in January by registry manager Natural England.

However, the register does not act as a marketplace for buying or selling units, or an assessment of the ecological suitability of proposals, but aims to show allocations of off-site biodiversity gains to developers, the Planning Advisory Service said.

“It was thought that the habitats on the off-site register would be easier to monitor and therefore, non-delivery of promised habitats would be less likely when compared with habitats from on-site BNG which are not on a register,” Duffus said.

Registration of each site costs £639, requiring documents including a legal agreement securing the land for at least 30 years, a habitat monitoring plan, and completed statutory biodiversity metric tool calculations.

Observers are keenly watching the progression of the BNG law as it could set a global standard for government nature requirements, while creating a market for statutory biodiversity credits that developers have to buy off-site as a ‘last resort’, after buying off-site units.

The BNG legislation has been heralded as pioneering, while facing numerous issues over the last year, including claims it could incentivise building in nature recovery areas, pose serious risks to ecology, and has fundamental gaps in its market infrastructure.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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