BNG - in force but more information awaited

Biodiversity net gain (BNG) for most major town and country planning development came into effect earlier this week on Monday, 12 February 2024, subject to certain exceptions and exemptions – for example, small sites will not have to deliver 10% BNG until 2 April 2024 and requirement does not apply to permitted development rights, de minimis development, certain self-build and custom-built development and householder applications. The requirement means that affected development cannot commence until a biodiversity gain plan has been submitted to and approved by the relevant planning authority. Do developers who are impacted now have all the information that they need?

Most of the information that Defra published at the end of November 2023 was updated on 12 February 2024 to provide guidance to developers, landowners and local authorities alike on what needs to be taken into consideration to comply with the BNG requirement. However, the information that we highlighted in our blog post of 26 January 2024 is still not available – the BNG Planning Practice Guidance is still in draft and, alongside the Biodiversity Gain Plan template which was updated yesterday, Defra confirmed that they are still “in the process of publishing a gain plan template for phased developments”.

We have prepared a briefing for clients on the BNG requirement for town and country planning development which we will publish once the final version of the BNG Planning Practice Guidance and the phased development biodiversity gain plan templates are available. If you are interested in receiving a copy, please contact us. (Spoiler alert – slot out's from and slot in's to planning permissions and the linking of what will be extant is a bit of a head scratcher….)