The Importance of BNG Data for Local Planning Authorities

Planning decisions rely on local biodiversity data to ensure that wildlife and habitats are considered during developments. This presentation will take a look at the importance of data for local authorities when applying the requirements of the Environment Act for Biodiversity Net Gain purposes.

Paul Mellor is a Chartered Town Planner and the Environment Manager at TfL, responsible for BNG across the organisation. He previously worked as a policy planner at a local authority on biodiversity and green infrastructure.

Q&A with Paul Mellor

What would TfL like to see any surplus funds generated by data searches spent on?
The Local Nature Recovery Strategy for London is going to be really complicated due to the number of authorities involved. TfL operates across all of these authorities and has a key role to play within the London LNRS. It would be great to see more funding going towards this.
How do we avoid hollow promises for Biodiversity Net Gain off-site via Section 106 agreements?
The priority is to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain on-site through planning conditions first. Where this is not possible, Biodiversity Net Gain should be delivered off-site. This off-setting will be through habitat banking and these need to be registered through Defra. The introduction of the Biodiversity Net Gain system for habitat banking should help ensure that off-setting is undertaken as it should be.
Was the baseline biodiversity study based entirely on aerial/satellite imagery?
Yes – it was based on aerial and satellite imagery. The work we are doing now to update this now has a pixelation with an accuracy of up to 3 metres. We’re also looking to ground-truth sites to calibrate that method and to check any site that we think has the potential to yield further units and contribute towards our habitat bank.
Do you access data from the London Wildlife Trust or London Natural History Society?
Our service level agreement is with GiGL (Greenspace Information for Greater London) and they provide us with the data that they have collated from a wide range of data providers. Both the London Wildlife Trust and London Natural History Society submit biodiversity data to GiGL, so their data is included.
How do Sites Important for Nature Conservation feature within your habitat banking work?
We do hold quite a lot of sites that are designated as Sites Important for Nature Conservation (SINCs) and these are all registered with GiGL. These sites are designated for their ecological value and are therefore unlikely to feature within our habitat banking work as they already have a high value and it would therefore be difficult to improve. We will continue to look into how SINCs an be improved in terms of condition, but this is likely to be in parallel to the habitat banking work rather than as a part of it.