Not for loss: Opportunities for landowning charities

Writing for Governance and Leadership, partners Jonathan Fewster and Angus Walker discuss the opportunities for landowning charities and environmental groups to profit from the new biodiversity net gain regime.

Jonathan Fewster and Angus Walker write:

‘On 12 February the first phase of mandatory biodiversity net gain (BNG) was introduced for major planning applications and from 2 April it applied to all planning applications. BNG is a new obligation on planning applicants to more than offset any loss in habitat caused by their developments. Affected land is scored according to a biodiversity metric produced by Natural England according to the habitats it contains and their condition, with rarer habitats and those in better condition getting a higher score. These values are multiplied by the area of the habitat – and a small uplift if the habitat is mentioned in the local plan – to give a numerical score in biodiversity units.’

Subscribers can read the full article on the Civil Society website.