Category Archives: Biodiversity

The Hidden Risks: Why BNG Baseline Surveys Demand a Professional Ecologist 

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The Hidden Risks: Why BNG Baseline Surveys Demand a Professional Ecologist

I am not very risk averse. I don’t wear a helmet when I go skiing. I eat a lot of saturated fats, and when I am undertaking projects for hobbies (building extensions / forestry etc) then I don’t follow many safety precautions. My instinct of self preservation is set fairly low. . . . . .

BUT. One topic I am very careful with is Ecology. Because I don’t want to go to jail. . . . and please don’t think I am over-egging this 2 guys got sent to jail for chopping a tree down last year.

With mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) now a core part of the planning process in England, the temptation for developers and landowners of smaller sites to fill out the baseline assessment themselves is understandable. After all, the Small Sites Metric (SSM) is marketed as being usable by a “competent person.”

However, to rely solely on a layperson’s judgment for the BNG baseline survey is to expose the entire project to significant risks—legal, financial, and planning—that far outweigh any initial cost savings. The BNG metric is a legal tool designed by ecologists, but only an expert can navigate the fine line between satisfying a planning condition and avoiding a criminal offence.

Tracks and Signs of the Birds of Britain and Europe (Bloomsbury Naturalist) – An Excellent Book for Species Identification

The above is just ones of the 100’s of figures contained within “Tracks and Signs of the Birds of Britain and Europe” it takes years of experience to be able to read these signs. I wouldn’t know which of the above are protected and which are not. That is why I would recommend getting an ecologist to do you BNG baseline survey.

1. The Critical Flaw: The Habitat Condition Trap

The BNG Metric, whether the full Statutory Metric or the simplified SSM, relies on accurately defining the type and condition of every habitat on site. This is where a layperson is most likely to fail the Local Planning Authority (LPA) check.

An ecologist is trained in the UK Habitat (UKHab) Classification system and uses standardised criteria to score habitat condition. For example, what looks like “long grass” to a layperson might be identified by an ecologist as Low-Quality Modified Grassland (low biodiversity value), or, critically, as Priority Habitat Lowland Meadow (high biodiversity value). Misclassifying a high-value habitat as a low-value one:

Massively underestimates the baseline biodiversity unit score.

Requires far more compensatory habitat creation (often making the development unviable).

Guarantees that the LPA will reject the submission, leading to months of expensive delays while a professional survey is commissioned and the metric is re-run.

2. The Legal Threat: Protected Species Liability

The BNG Metric and Protected Species Law operate on separate tracks, but they meet on the ground—your development site. The greatest risk is criminal prosecution under wildlife legislation.

Protected species (such as bats, badgers, and great crested newts) and their habitats are protected by law, primarily the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. Disturbing or destroying their resting places is a criminal offence, even if it is done accidentally.

A layperson’s baseline survey only focuses on the habitat units and cannot definitively rule out protected species. For instance, an old shed or a mature tree hole may be a bat roost. A pond may hold a population of Great Crested Newts. An ecologist, through a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal (PEA), specifically flags these features and identifies the need for mandatory, species-specific surveys. A layperson who fails to spot these signs and proceeds with demolition is committing a crime.

Recent Criminal Sentences

The risk is not theoretical. Criminal sentences for wildlife offences associated with development are becoming increasingly severe:

  • Financial Penalties: Fines for companies and individuals can be unlimited for offences relating to Protected Species.
  • Custodial Sentences: Individuals found guilty of intentional or reckless damage can face imprisonment. For instance, prosecutions have resulted in significant fines for developers found guilty of destroying badger setts or disturbing bat roosts, often running into the tens of thousands of pounds, alongside orders to pay massive remedial costs and prosecution costs.
  • Somerset Example: A recent case in Somerset saw a caravan park owner ordered to pay over £116,000 for disturbing a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), demonstrating the courts’ willingness to issue punitive financial orders under the Proceeds of Crime Act where clear environmental harm and disregard for the law are found.

In conclusion, while the SSM is designed to be accessible, a layperson completing the BNG baseline is making critical ecological judgments that carry profound legal and financial weight.

An approved BNG plan is not a “get out of jail free” card for protected species law. Engaging a qualified ecologist is the only way to ensure the data is accurate, the project avoids criminal risk, and the planning process is delivered efficiently. Don’t risk a development delay or a criminal prosecution to save on an essential ecological report.

BNG Assessments London

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London BNG Expertise: Over 20 Assessments in the Last Year

The introduction of mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) has created a significant challenge for London developers: how to achieve the required 10% gain within the confines of a highly constrained, urban environment. At SWEL, we have rapidly mobilised our ecological expertise to meet this demand, completing over 20 BNG assessments across various London boroughs in the last year alone.

Top Tip: Please don’t do any site clearance works before you have spoken to our ecologists. It could cost you a great deal of money if chop down a valuable tree (£25,000 per tree).

This hands-on experience has equipped us with the proven strategies needed to navigate the complexities unique to the capital. While many developments have zero or low ecological baselines, the London Plan demands meaningful contributions to green infrastructure. Our track record shows we successfully apply the statutory Defra Metric to urban sites, identifying creative solutions such as:

  • Urban Greening Factor (UGF) Integration: Ensuring BNG designs complement and achieve the borough’s Urban Greening Factor targets.
  • Green Roofs and Walls: Maximising ‘high distinctiveness’ habitats in limited space.
  • Off-site Unit Planning: Securing and allocating registered off-site BNG units where on-site delivery is not physically possible.

Example Plans Created by SWEL’s Ecologist

Rapid Response: Qualified Ecologists Ready for Your Project

We understand that delays in planning can be costly. The challenge faced by many Local Planning Authorities (LPAs)—which often lack the in-house ecological expertise and are reporting staff shortages—can slow down the BNG verification process.

To directly address this speed bottleneck, SWEL has a dedicated team of suitably qualified proactive and personable ecologists standing ready to deliver your assessment on a rapid turnaround. Our experts are proficient in the latest statutory metric and the nuanced requirements of individual London Boroughs. By submitting a robust, accurate BNG Assessment and Habitat Management Plan (HMP) from day one, we help your application move through the system efficiently, avoiding unnecessary requests for further information and reducing your time to consent.

On-Site Mitigation?

Our service goes beyond simply calculating your Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) deficit; we provide comprehensive strategies for achieving the mandatory 10% net gain, regardless of your site’s complexity. We offer expert advice on both on-site mitigation—designing and integrating ecologically valuable habitats such as green roofs, sustainable drainage features (SuDS), and enhanced landscaping directly into your development plans—and securing off-site BNG credits. Whether your London site is too constrained for on-site delivery, or you need a rapid solution, we guide you through the process of legally purchasing and allocating credits from registered off-site providers, ensuring your project achieves the necessary net gain quickly and compliantly for local authority approval.

Another Example Plan From a BNG Assessment

In conclusion, partnering with Southwest Environmental for your London Biodiversity Net Gain assessment delivers both unrivalled expertise and critical efficiency. Our proven track record of successfully navigating over ten complex BNG assessments in urban settings over the past year, combined with our strategic advice on both on-site design and off-site credits, ensures a compliant and pragmatic path to planning consent. When time is money and regulatory detail is paramount, trust SWEL’s team of qualified ecologists to provide the rapid, robust, and reliable BNG solutions you need to keep your London development on schedule and ethically sound. Contact us today to secure your swift BNG assessment.

How many BNG Credits per Acre?

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How many BNG Credits per Acre?

If you are considering giving up some of you farm land for BNG credits, then of course you will need to know how many BNG credits you will get per acre. The land you are giving up for BNG will be out of use for many years and as such it is only right to investigate the returns you might expect.

BNG Credits are created by changing land from one use to another. For example a field to woodland, or some low lying meadows in to wetlands.

Not Just “How Many”

The first thing to realize is that it is not just a case of “how many”. As with wine or stamps the price of credits varies based on “distinctiveness“. Grassland may have quite low “distinctiveness”, whilst a lake would have very high distinctiveness. This can affect the price of each credit by 400%. (£40,000 to £200,000 or more).

Wetlands are a Very Good Option for BNG

But. How Many BNG Credits per Acre?

The short answer might be about 1 BNG Credit per Acre. Or 2 BNG Credits per Hectare.

This is based a few real world examples we have worked on where say 4 hectares of marginal land yielded around 7 BNG Credits.

But of course it is not that simple. The credits come from improvements in biodiversity. So if you start with good bio diversity (say scrub) then you will gain less when you “upgrade” to woodland.

Your best possible “yield” would be to upgrade mono-cultural farmland to something like a swamp or lake. But in terms of profit (especially in the long term) perhaps it is better to use scruffy marginal land and make fewer credits.

A last word. If you are think perhaps you could “tidy up” an area and then re-wild it in a year of two remember that what you do is all being recorded by satellites (google earth), and part of the process if proving that the land has not recently been changed.

Prices Can Vary Per Unit

Want to Know More

If you would like to know how much money you could make from BNG credits, then please do contact us (wt@southwest-environmental.co.uk) and we can arrange for our ecologist to advise you on the best way forward.

BNG Exemption Statement Bristol

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BNG Exemption Statement Bristol

Do you need to fill out your BNG Exemption Statement in Bristol. We can do that.

What is It?

It companies 4 questions:

  • 1. Does the development qualify as a ‘householder application’?
  • 2. Is the development undertaken solely or mainly for fulfilling the BNG condition of another development?
  • 3. Does the development consist of no more than 9 self-build or custom build dwellings on a site no larger than 0.5 hectares?
  • 4. Does the development impact less than 25 square metres of onsite habitat or less than 5 metres of onsite linear habitat, and does not impact a priority habitat?

You go from one step top the next, and if you come out clear then you don’t need to to BNG.

Exemption Statement

This involves filling out various section of a form. Find the below hints on how to do this. Bristol City Council have provided an example you can follow.

5 – Habitats regulation wording.

6 – Go through the checks as shown at beginning of the form,

7 – Take Photos, or use history function on google earth to show ground cover over year on site. Overlay the site boundary on to these plans so you can see what the areas involved are and how big they are.

8 – Talk about how you will install bat boxes and that short of thing.

Get Us to Do it For You

No job too small for us, and we expect you would rather not do this sort of thing. Please let us do it for you, it will not cost much and you will have more time for living life (to the max :-/)

Contact Us

Email:

swenviro+bristol@gmail.com

Telephone:

01173 270 092

Nutrient Credit & BNG Credits – Lessons Learned

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Nutrient Credit & BNG Credits – Lessons Learned

This is a dictated blog post so please excuse the poor punctuation although I expect the speech to text algorithm I’m using probably does a better job at a spelling than I do so at least that’s something! I also tried to write this as informally as possible and also put some very slight humour in it. . . .  this isn’t a reflection of my lack of sincerity with regards this topic but apparently if I am to keep ahead of AI then I need to inject humor and humans sensibility into my written content . . .  so there we go Brave New World. . . .

We’ve finally come to a point with nutrient neutrality where we have a complete system for measuring the inputs & outputs (which has been the case for a few years), and we also now (as of just a few weeks ago) have a complete legal system (in some areas at least) for the delivery of nutrient credits from off-site sources.

This took around two years to arrange and I’m a bit apprehensive about the same thing happening with biodiversity net gain will planning authorities and natural England learn from the lessons of the past four years and the laborious drag that has been nutrient neutrality all will they reinvent the wheel and keep his waiting another four years for biodiversity credits.

Baselines and Loads

In nutrient neutrality we talk about baselines and loads as in the before and after nutrient balance of a particular site and this is the same to some extent for biodiversity because we have a baseline and we also have post-development figure which has to be higher than the pre-development figure.

This is all very well set out in natural England’s biodiversity net gain matrices and we have accrued considerable in-house experience in filling these tables out as well as conducting various baseline surveys that are involved such as hepatak condition surveys so this sound so this part of biodiversity net gain sounds quite promising and certainly progressing as well or perhaps better than nutrient neutrality calculations of the same type.

It’s worth noting as well that since they’re release the BNG calculator have not been updated time and time again like many of the phosphorus calculators around the country Somerset Council and Cornwall Council have both been very bad and doing this with several updates since the initial calculator released.

Mitigation Projects

So this all sounds pretty good so far we’ve got to where working things out for BNG, and with nutrient neutrality we have some legal precedence which might apply to biodiversity net gain.

But this is where the good luck starts to be slightly eroded by some rather poorly planned schemes around land use.

So biodiversity net gain can be a profitable land use although it does lock the land up for around 80 years each credit is worth around 25,000 push and one hectare planted to mix broadly woodland can create five appetite habitat credits which is about 125,000 pounds so that sounds quite good.

The problem is that biodiversity netgame credits are not the only thing that farmers can do with underproductive land in fact there’s a very recent scheme under the sustainable farming initiative which sees underprotective areas of land set aside for around five years being very attractive option at present and in the number of cases where we visited farms and advised farmers on what they can expect to gain from implementation of net gain projects on the land we have found that they cite sustainable farming initiative as a reason not for doing it because it will pay better in the short term, and they don’t have to lock up their land for a huge period which may affect their children or possibly even grandchildren.

So there is a clash there between two conflicting schemes that surely won’t help it least in the short term.

Legal Smeagols

So lastly but definitely not leastly (you see AI would not do quirky spelling like that) we have the legal stuff, and I have to admit that we haven’t really dealt with very much of this with regards to biodiversity net gain or the creation of biodiversity credit schemes but one could suppose that it will encounter the same barriers as the legal elements of off-site credit schemes that have been faced by nutrient credit schemes.

In these cases we have seen a variety of legal implements being used one example of which might be an overarching section 106 agreement which can be used by a credit scheme provider to prove to the Council that they will take responsibility for the scheme in the long run the people accepting the credit also have to fill out various pieces of paperwork which may involve contracts or supply which are between the credit user and the credit seller or perhaps the unilateral undertaking that can also be used in some instances some after worse examples that we have heard of come from caulmore Cornwall where local councils have flared to the idea of putting notes on landowners title deeds which has gone down very badly.

You should definitely contact us if you want to run a credit scheme for biodiversity net gain. It will be complicated and for your own sanity, you should pay us to do it for you.

Which sites are exempt from BNG?

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Which sites are exempt from BNG?

You might be pondering the question: Which sites are exempt from BNG?

Several types of developments are exempt from Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements in the UK. Here’s a breakdown of the main categories:

Existing Planning Applications: Developments with planning applications submitted before February 12, 2024 (the mandatory BNG start date) are exempt.

Developments Below the Threshold: Projects with minimal impact on biodiversity qualify for exemption if they meet certain criteria:

  • They don’t affect any priority habitat.
  • The development impacts less than:
    – 25 square meters of non-priority habitat.
    – 5 linear meters of habitats like hedgerows (hedgerow is a boundary line of closely spaced shrubs or small trees).
  • Householder Applications: Minor building works like home extensions typically undertaken by homeowners are exempt.

Self-build and Custom Housebuilding: Small-scale self-build and custom housebuilding projects qualify if they meet all these conditions:

  • No more than 9 dwellings are built.
  • The total site area is no larger than 0.5 hectares (around 1.2 acres).
  • The dwellings are exclusively for self-build or custom housebuilding as defined by specific legislation.

Other Exemptions:

  • Developments specifically for biodiversity gain.
  • High-speed rail projects.
  • There may be other exemptions; it’s best to consult with the relevant authorities for the latest information.

 

How Can Sewage Companies Increase Biodiversity?

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Perhaps – But What is Being Done at the Moment is not Enough.

Sewage companies, even though dealing with the not-so-glamorous side of our lives, can play a surprisingly crucial role in boosting biodiversity. But the light touch methods used at present will not outway the harm that outdated, and badly run assets causes. Here are some ways sewage companies claim to help at present:

1. Investing in advanced treatment technologies:

  • Membrane bioreactors (MBRs): These sophisticated systems use membranes to filter out even the tiniest contaminants, producing cleaner effluent that’s safer for aquatic life.
  • Nutrient removal technologies: Excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from sewage can trigger harmful algal blooms, upsetting the ecosystem. Advanced treatment methods like biological nutrient removal can help control these nutrients.
  • Microbial fuel cells: These innovative systems harness the power of microbes to generate electricity from wastewater, potentially turning waste into a resource and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. This may seam slightly detached from bio diversity, but resource used and climate change are both reducing biodiversity.

2. Minimizing pollution at the source:

  • Public education and outreach: Raising awareness about responsible disposal of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and other harmful substances can significantly reduce their presence in wastewater.
  • Collaboration with industries: Partnering with industries to pretreat their wastewater before it enters the municipal system can significantly lessen the load on treatment plants and protect aquatic ecosystems.
  • Investing in leak detection and repair: Leaky pipes and sewers allow untreated wastewater to escape into the environment, contaminating water sources and harming biodiversity. Regular inspections and proactive repairs can minimize these leaks.
  • Elimination Combined Sewer Overflows: Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) can have a significant and negative impact on the environment, public health, and infrastructure.

3. Creating and restoring natural habitats:

  • Wetlands construction: Wetlands act as natural filters, removing pollutants and providing habitat for diverse species. Sewage companies can create or restore wetlands near treatment plants to enhance biodiversity.
  • Riparian buffer zones: Planting trees and shrubs along riverbanks helps stabilize the soil, prevents erosion, and creates valuable habitat for birds, insects, and other wildlife.
  • Fish stocking programs: In some cases, carefully planned fish stocking programs can help restore fish populations in rivers impacted by past sewage discharges.

4. Embracing circular economy principles:

  • Resource recovery: Sewage sludge, a byproduct of treatment, can be treated and turned into fertilizer or renewable energy sources, reducing reliance on virgin resources and minimizing waste.
  • Water reuse: Treated wastewater can be used for irrigation, industrial processes, or even toilet flushing, reducing pressure on freshwater resources.

By implementing these strategies, sewage companies can transform their operations from potential threats to biodiversity into valuable contributors to a healthier planet. Remember, a thriving ecosystem not only benefits the environment but also leads to cleaner water, improved public health, and a more resilient future for all.

But – The Damage is Far Worse

Sewage, a byproduct of our daily lives, poses a significant challenge to the UK’s precious biodiversity. While modern wastewater treatment facilities significantly reduce pollution, the issue remains complex, with various factors influencing the impact on different ecosystems.

Negative Effects:

  • Nutrient Overload: Excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from sewage can trigger algal blooms, depleting oxygen levels and harming aquatic life. Imagine vast stretches of water covered in thick, green scum, suffocating fish and other organisms.
Image of Algae bloom caused by sewage pollutionAlgae bloom caused by sewage pollution
  • Toxic Chemicals: Sewage can contain pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and industrial pollutants that are harmful to wildlife. These chemicals can disrupt hormones, impair reproduction, and even cause deformities in animals.
  • Habitat Degradation: Untreated sewage spills or overflows can contaminate rivers, streams, and coastal areas, damaging sensitive ecosystems like coral reefs and seagrass meadows. These vital habitats provide food and shelter for countless species, and their loss has cascading effects throughout the food chain.
  • Spread of Disease: Sewage can carry bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can sicken fish, birds, and other wildlife. This can lead to outbreaks of disease and population decline, disrupting the delicate balance of ecosystems.

  • Plastics: Our ubiquitous companions in modern life, unfortunately find their way into our sewage systems, posing a significant and often hidden threat to aquatic ecosystems and potentially even human health. Everyday plastic items like disposable cups, plastic bags.