BNG services January update
Here is a new year update on Biodiversity Net Gain services from Jon Collins, Head of Consultancy at Maydencroft.
"As we ready ourselves for what 2025 has to bring, it is interesting to reflect on a full and fascinating year of BNG activity at Maydencroft Limited, and where we are 11 months on from BNG becoming mandatory.
Over the course of 2024, we have prepared BNG assessments and documentation for 18 planning applications on behalf of our clients in the utility and commercial sectors. Through this we have seen a variety of requests and responses from local authorities, but mostly things seem to be progressing relatively smoothly.
The main challenge we have found is developer perception of BNG alongside other landscape, ecological and arboricultural mitigation demands, particularly where on-site delivery needs to achieve myriad goals. This has required meticulous communication and collaboration between our consultants, and clarity over the ‘function’ of proposals.
We are finding that our clients are continuing to favour on-site BNG delivery wherever possible, although this is creating a conflict with operational sites where space is a premium and there will likely be greater demands and requirements in the course of the next 30 years. With such sites we are trying to encourage our clients towards off-site delivery to secure greater biodiversity benefit and the avoidance of inevitable future issues.
In addition to planning work, we have been involved in developing and progressing 12 habitat bank schemes for a variety of landowners and clients across the country. A number of these have made it as far as Local Authorities and Responsible Bodies, with compliance feedback received and enacted, and schemes on the cusp of delivery. We are now developing detailed proposals for ongoing ecological monitoring, capital works and land management.
It has been of great interest to see the variation in responses from Local Authorities and Responsible Bodies and how our work is being received and scrutinised. In some instances Local Authority feedback has been fairly brief, although for one project it led to a highly productive on-site meeting with the council’s ecologist and archaeologist, helping to further refine the proposal and gain support. Responsible Body feedback has generally been more detailed, picking up on the finer points of ongoing maintenance prescriptions, and reassuringly identifying future ecological trends that should be considered. It is this level of due diligence that must become the standard to ensure success of schemes.
The year ahead will undoubtedly continue to present BNG challenges and opportunities aplenty, but we will keep striving to refine the quality of our work in light of new learning and feedback, and greatly look forward to the next stage of delivering these biodiversity projects on the ground."
Post by Jon Collins, Head of Consultancy.
If you would like to discuss any BNG services with our team then please do contact us:
Email
info@maydencroft.co.uk
0800 157 7707