Opportunities for Landowners
Biodiversity Net Gain offers opportunities to landowners but there are many issues to be considered.
What is Biodiversity Net Gain?
Introduced in February 2024, the Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) obligation applies to most planning permissions and will do so for all development consent orders (DCOs) from November 2025. BNG is a new mandatory condition being attached to planning permissions, where any habitat lost by the development must be replaced with enhanced habitat elsewhere. The main principle of the approach is to assess the ecological value of an area (calculated by a metric developed by Natural England), and commit to implementing measures to enhance biodiversity to deliver a minimum of a 10% net gain over time. There must be a commitment to maintain the new habitat in its target condition for at least 30 years.
Some local authorities may have stricter policies than the statutory minimum of 10% net gain, although the government is now discouraging this. You can check your local authority’s BNG policies via our table which contains links to England’s 317 local councils’ and 10 national park authorities’ references to BNG.
Full details of the new regime are set out in Schedule 7A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Opportunities for landowners
Landowners interested in providing land for BNG should:
- assess the economic productivity of their land – low productivity land lends itself to habitat creation and therefore will be attractive to developers for offsite BNG and to the government as land suitable for procuring biodiversity credits;
- measure their land’s baseline biodiversity, especially that of any marginal land – if it is low, such land will be more attractive both for development – as the baseline biodiversity unit value will be lower and therefore the number of biodiversity units which a developer will have to procure to meet their 10% BNG will be lower – and would be suitable for biodiversity enhancement.
How to offer biodiversity gain sites to developers?
If you are a landowner, land manager or broker acting for landowners, you can offer land to developers to pay you to create and then maintain new or improved habitat for the minimum of 30 years. Like a developer providing onsite BNG, you will have to prepare a ‘habitat management and monitoring plan’ setting out how the habitat will be managed and monitored, and complete either a s106 agreement with the local authority where the land is situated or a conservation covenant with a responsible body. Note that this is a special type of s106 agreement because it does not relate to a particular planning permission. If you are a broker, there are different models available, but you will need commercial agreements with landowners, possibly developers as well and ecologists if they are creating and maintaining the habitat rather than you or the landowner. If you need help with this type of s106 agreement or conservation covenant, let us know. Land must then go on a new ‘biodiversity gain site register’, incurring a fee of £639 to do so.
Issues for landowners to consider
Landowners considering putting their land forward for biodiversity credits should:
- note that the units are secured by s106 agreements or conservation covenants. Therefore, they bind the land for the full period the covenant is in force (which will be at least 30 years). During the period in which the covenant is in force, the land cannot be used for any purpose that would damage the habitat. This may have an impact on its value, especially if the land may be ear-marked in the local planning authority’s local plan as land suitable for development. Moreover, seeing as the direction of government policy is firmly moving in the direction of biodiversity enhancement, it is arguable that it may not be possible to use land that has been set aside for BNG for anything else, even once the agreement binding it has expired;
- be aware of tax implications – taking land out of agricultural production may mean the loss of inheritance tax reliefs; and
- be aware that Natural England has also developed a biodiversity gain sites register, which includes information about any site that is being used to deliver BNG. This register is open to the public. Therefore, landowners and farmers should make sure they are comfortable that any information contained within it in respect of their land will be available to the public.
