Biodiversity Net Gain

Home
Services and solutions
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
Biodiversity Net Gain

This hub provides a resource for those engaged in the development and delivery of biodiversity gains to understand the key issues and bring together the disparate elements of guidance and practice across different areas of government and the wider built environment and land management sector.

We continue to invest in emerging BNG strategies and solutions that will work, drawing on experience advising government, landowners, developers and local planning authorities. The team has been involved in various large development and infrastructure schemes which included BNG challenges such as advising on BNG planning obligations on large, phased or outline developments, and negotiating commercial contracts to secure the sale of habitat units. We are commercially aware of BNG's implications and have advised on BNG in respect of strategic land and rewilding schemes.

In addition to the insight section, we invite you to view posts related to BNG on our Planning Law Blog.

Our credentials

Confidential Habitat Bank: Assisting a gain site operator on their 30-hectare habitat bank by advising on the application of the Statutory Biodiversity Metric, scope of the habitat management and monitoring plan, and the utility of BNG unit exchanges.
Confidential Developer: Supporting a developer at a planning appeal where the delivery of the biodiversity net gain was a reason for refusal. Successfully negotiated a legally compliant and commercially acceptable BNG condition and planning obligation with the local authority to support the planning appeal.
Places for People: Supporting the 8,500 home Harlow & Gilston Garden Town proposal on the approach to securing and delivering BNG across multiple large phases of a large development through conditions and planning obligations.
David Wilson Homes: Successfully defended judicial review proceedings on which BNG formed the basis of multiple grounds of challenge. The court held that an evolving BNG strategy for an outline planning permission did not give rise to a duty to return the application to Committee members and that the local planning authority had not failed to consider the new relevant BNG information.

The Planning Advisory Service

The Planning Advisory Service (PAS) is part of the Local Government Association and aims to support local authorities to meet their legal obligations in respect of BNG. We helped PAS create template conditions and planning obligations to secure BNG on development sites and habitat banks for the Planning Advisory Service. The templates provide a starting point for local authorities to secure their BNG from developers and gain site operators and were provided to all local authorities in England. We continue to advise the Planning Advisory Service and local authorities in respect of BNG opportunities, challenges, and the BNG templates.

The Planning Advisory Service's BNG templates can be found here.

{ "heading": "Key contacts", "swipeData": ["United Kingdom","Local"], "localSubHeading":"Search a country to find a local key contact", "localSearchPlaceholder":"Local key contacts", "globalHideSeeFullTeam": 1, "Donotdisplaylocalkeycontacts": 1, "globalContactLimit": "0", "loadMore": "Load More", "hideGlobalHeading": 0 }