Clifford Chance
New Planning Requirements for Biodiversity Net Gain
13 August 2019
The Government has published its plans for implementation of "biodiversity net gain" in the planning system in a response to consultation. Developers will be required to assess potential development sites against a standardised biodiversity metric to quantify how biodiversity net gain shall be achieved in respect of their sites. Biodiversity net gain must then be delivered through either onsite mitigation, local compensatory habitat creation or, if necessary, buying statutory biodiversity units. In this briefing, we set out the Government's plans and offer some thoughts on what this biodiversity net gain proposal is likely to mean for developers going forward.
