Starting in 2024, new homes in England will have to make sure their projects deliver at least a 10% biodiversity net gain.
Helen Nyul, group biodiversity manager for one developer, describes what has been done at one recent development. “We’ve got the house marten nesting cups which are on the side of the front end of our building here. 
We’ve got swift nesting bricks. We’ve also installed hedgehog highways, which are simple little holes underneath fences in people’s back gardens, giving hedgehogs a much wider expanse of garden roaming. We’ve enhanced a pond and now it’s got lots of birds coming to visit every day.”
To make the calculation of ‘gain’ ecologists assess a site prior to development and give it a score depending on the variety and rarity of the species. If the building site is on a standard arable field, the existing wildlife might be quite meager so improving on it may be straightforward. But if trees, hedgerows, wetlands or even scrub land are bulldozed then making up for the loss and adding 10% is much more challenging.
Biodiversity offsetting is allowed. so that a field of barley a few miles may be selected to enjoy natural regeneration as a payback for damage elsewhere. The Environment Bank is a company which sells biodiversity units to developers who can’t do enough for nature within their own development. For instance, they’ve just begun planting hedges, but much more is planned across 38 hectares.
But will it just be a question of plant, pocket the money and walk away? They insist there is rigorous follow-up. “We undertake surveys annually to make sure that what we’ve promised on the ground is actually happening. And then we report back to the local planning authorities to tell them how it’s going. And if things aren’t quite going to plan, we can adjust what we do on the land to make sure that all of these commitments that we’ve made on behalf of the developer actually happen.”
Conservation groups worry that local authorities just don’t have enough trained ecologists on staff or the money to buy the expertise which will be demanded by the new law. It’s completely essential that they have the resources and credible monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to be able to do their job.
Get biodiversity net gain right and it could prove we can have thriving wildlife and a booming building sector. Get it wrong and there will be even less space for nature.
You can read the original article at news.sky.com
Enhancement yes – potential for disaster when any Governing Body has the open opportunity to decide on an ongoing basis your compliance to standards that they interpret. Unfortunately in our area the restrictions are enormous / overbearing as to legislation regarding permits – studies – engineering reports – administrative fees by local governing agencies etc. Enticement – reasonable idea. Encouragement and open fee zero consultation to provide support to builders and home owners better way in my opinion.
I wonder how much this new regulation will raise the cost to build in Britain. The difficult and bureaucratic process of getting planning permission in much of the United Kingdom is the majority of the reason housing is so expensive there! The starting price of a house in England and Wales hovers around £350,000, which is in the neighbourhood of $444,000 , and this is for a terraced \ row house averaging about 730 sq ft\ 71 sq m. The price jumps to north of £1,000,000 \ $1,268,400 in a city like London, Manchester or Cardiff