Designing with nature: planning approaches to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain

Helen Emmerson: Good afternoon all. We will just give it a few moments while everybody logs in. I can see the numbers are climbing, so we will kick off in about two to three minutes time.

OK. So thank you everybody for joining. There are now over one hundred of us so we will kick off.

So good afternoon and thank you for joining the webinar today, Designing with nature: planning approaches to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain.

So a few housekeeping notes just before we begin. The session is being recorded and it will be uploaded to the Gowling WLG website and circulated via a follow up email. Do please use the Q&A function for questions throughout. We will try and answer as many of those questions as we can towards the end of the session. If we do not get to answer your question live though, we will do our best to come back to you separately afterwards.

So we have got an hour scheduled. We will aim to finish just before that though. We are going to start with a general conversation around habitat management plans in particular. We will then look at how those plans are being delivered in practice and then finally looking at the market for buying units where developers are not undertaking BNG themselves.

As I say, we will conclude with Q&A so do send your questions and comments throughout.

So kicking off, I am Helen Emmerson, a partner in our real estate practice here at Gowling WLG and I am joined by Ben Stansfield whose is the partner who leads our sustainability practice.

On the panel today we have Kirsty Dougal who is a planning and environment manager at Chelmsford City Council and Adam Ralph, BNG project developer and stewardship specialist at Field Works.

If you would like to each tell us a bit about your respective roles in the BNG space please.

Kirsty Dougal: I will jump in first.

Helen: Thanks Kirsty

Kirsty: Thanks Helen. Good afternoon everyone. I am Kirsty, I as Helen said planning environment manager at Chelmsford City Council, in Essex, about half an hour train ride out of London, just for a bit of context. My role is predominantly managing planning and natural environment functions within development management. I am a planner by trade, I have dealt with the full range of planning applications that are submitted to our local authority, whether that be strategic housing or smaller developments and now my team is responsible for diversity net gain consultation responses and advice to planners, so I am involved across the board.

Helen: Thanks Kirsty. Adam.

Adam Ralph: Hi, thanks for the intro. So my role is quite niche so BNG project developer and stewardship specialist. So in practice that means we basically support our clients with any BNG projects whether it is on-site or off-site and helping with the process through feasibility and design and planning, all the way through to practical implementation and then the big stewardship piece, and that gives us a really good insight into each of those different processes, so hopefully we can share some of that insight so then people find it useful.

Helen: Thank you Adam. So first question to you please, Kirsty. In terms of the habitat management plans that are now being submitted to Chelmsford, what BNG information is Chelmsford and other LPAs wanting to see during that application process and in particular, I am thinking that formal BNG plans can be submitted until after planning has been granted, but presumably the LPA would like to see indicative ideas to understand what could be delivered on-site and off-site?

Kirsty: Yes, definitely. At Chelmsford we took the decision fairly early on in BNG kind of timeline to ask through our local validation list for more information then is nationally required. So we ask for post development metric to be submitted with your planning application. We appreciate that that may just be indicative at the stage of the planning application but it gives us a really idea of whether we are looking at on-site, off-site, a combination of both, what we are dealing with, how we may need to secure that. So, yeah, post development values up front is what we are asking for and we found that to be really helpful, especially speeding up that process.

Like you say, you actually, according to the regulations, you cannot submit your final BNG plan until planning permission has been granted. So you will always need to do that, but if we have seen a draft BNG plan post development metric up front, we have a good idea of where we are heading and it should then streamline that process post decision and speed up delivery.

Helen: Thank you.

Ben: Can I jump in there?

Helen: Yes.

Ben: That sounds all really sort of sensible and pragmatic, but I have got one local authority at the minute who are wanting a reservation certificate. We are likely to go off-site on this scheme and as part of the planning application validation the local authority are saying well we need you to waiver an agreement that you are going to buy these off-site units. Which is really frustrating because it does not allow for that conversation between the planning authority and the developer to say well what is the art of the possible as you are going through the process you are requiring developers to almost pre-judge what they are going to do on BNG and we are going to go off-site. It is quite frustrating. So that Chelmsford approach seems entirely pragmatic to know if something is deliverable but without crystallising the actual solution.

Kirsty: Yes, we do not need to know the exact details, we certainly do not ask for the reservations because things change. Of course they will do. They may evolve during the planning process and they will change, but we like to have that idea up front, especially whether we are looking at on-site or off-site, it then makes everything easier.

Helen: Sorry, I was going to say, how strictly are local planning authorities looking at that hierarchy because we know developers are going to have maximised, within reasonable boundaries, the developable area of their site, so there is going to be a tension there isn't there. How far has the developer got to go to demonstrate there really is no space on-site for BNG and that is why they are looking off-site, for example?

Kirsty: It may just be the type of habitats that we have in Chelmsford, I cannot speak for other areas of the country. We take a reasonably pragmatic approach to this, kind of balanced against that need for growth. You know, we would look at the distinctiveness and the importance of the habitat. But avoidance is not always possible when you are balancing it against that needs and growth demands.

So we do take a pragmatic approach, generally we are looking at minimising impacts and on-site gains and we would pay particular attention to trying to maximise on-site as much as possible before looking at off-site. Sometimes are you dealing with a small constrained site, avoidance is not always going to be possible. But, yes, then we would maximise on-site for sure.

Helen: Thank you. I know a lot of the early conversations we were hearing when BNG was being introduced was a little bit of panic and concern around LPAs' resource, ecology resource for dealing with planning applications, submission of plans. How is that actually playing out in practice, 18 months on from your perspective, Kirsty?

Kirsty: My perspective is if I am honest, even though we are 18 months down the line, we still have not had a huge amount of final BNG plans submitted to us. We have had a lot of exemptions. Not a huge amount of our major strategic developers are in the mandatory BNG world.

That being said, I appreciate there has been a lot of nervousness about delays and the availability of ecologies in particular. Personally we have not really found that to be an issue particularly in the planning application process. I completely understand that might be a different issue or consideration pre-planning and the availability of an ecologies to do baseline surveys and that kind of thing, but during the application process we have received government grants to get ourselves ready for BNG and we have used those particularly on training.

I know a lot of other authorities have used those grants to secure in-house or kind of retain external consultants. So I do not think that is really slowing things down during the application process, from what I have seen, at lease.

Helen: Thank you, and then just looking at kind of the cost side of things. So when you are considering these plans, are you considering the ongoing maintenance costs that some of these proposals might include, the sort of burden for residents for example, if we were looking at a house builder development and then are you looking at challenging developers to dial down some of those expensive BNG suggestions they might be tempted to come up with and Adam, I would really welcome your perspective on this too, after Kirsty's thoughts please.

Kirsty: Yes, I think this is a big conversation to be had. To be honest, one that is not maybe necessarily been at the forefront of BNG discussions. It seems to be very much secure your BNG, manage and maintain it for 30 years, but the cost implications, particularly on residence and management companies maybe has not really been thought through.

Again, pragmatic approach really. Ultimately we are looking for enhancements and biodiversity net gain that it is feasible and can be secured and managed. If we were looking at a habitat kind of delivery that it is going to be incredibly expensive and that cost is going to have to be passed on to residents, I think we would question that because 30 years, it just does not seem quite as feasible, easy and practical as it could possibly be, so I think we, yes, we would look at that as a consideration.

Balanced against we are not going to say do not deliver this type of habitat that is really needed because it is going to be expensive, but there has got to be a middle ground there, I think. I am not sure about Adam's experience, he has probably got more experience of that then we have.

Adam: I think the big thing we are seeing is actually that that early engagement piece. So the house builders and developers that we are working with are certainly starting to come to us now and say can you provide us with a high level technical cost budget so we know what it is going to cost to do the practical implementation. We know what the establishment period cost is likely to be and then we know what that standard maintenance period is going to look like.

So they are getting those figures really early on in terms of helping them make decisions as to what is going on. This is the same on-site or off-site. Getting off-site point of view habitat bank developers want to know what they are going to get in terms of return on their investments. They want to know what habitat is going to cost to implement and then maintain.

I think what we are actually seeing is the on-site vegetation is not impacting that sort of standard public open space maintenance cost. The costs are getting inflated through monitoring requirements and reporting requirements. The actual grounds maintenance, if you like element, is not swaying those open space budgets particularly. In some cases the maintenance regime may be less intense than amenity open space, so there is occasions where you are seeing lower costs being driven through.

But again, it is on the radar for developers and they are considering that, which is really positive I think.

Helen: Thanks Adam.

Ben Stansfield: I was going to add to Kirsty's pragmatism right that where a habitat needs to be provided that it is going to be perhaps a bit more involved on management or cost, that might be something that actually is more appropriate to get an off-site unit for and you kind of lean towards more vanilla stuff with the ongoing residents to pay for. It kind of leaves a more complicated more expensive more involved maintenance and management to the BNG specialists who have set themselves up as dedicated habitat banks and this is all we do, we are really good at this and it kind of separating that of it is going to be on-site but the trickier stuff is probably best elsewhere.

Adam: Yes.

Helen: Thanks. Finally Kirsty, what have you and your team been able to do in terms helping guide developers on BNG best practice, for example?

Kirsty: We, so our local authority, we run agent and developer forums, usually twice a year. We were flagging BNG requirements and what we would be looking for, those way before mandatory BNG came in. So we introduced the topic really early on and we were available, I think we have been really, or we were, really open and honest and said, you know, this is a new regime, we have not got all the answers, but this is what we are looking for and we will need to work through this together.

Again the usual stuff, website pages with some information directing to the government guidance, particularly the government guidance for developers and landowners in the space of BNG. There is a lot of advice out there, sometimes tricky to navigate your way through that advice, but we have tried to pick the right bits out.

Also in terms of making it easy, we are encouraging or requiring use of the templates for BNG plans and HMMPs, the template is there, we do not need to rewrite them, that ensures that we have all the information we need, and then I flagged it at the start, but our local validation list we were quick off the mark with that at Chelmsford and I think that has been a real game changer for us because we have had those expectations from the very start.

Definitely including post development metrics, up front with your application, it has required people to think about BNG at that early stage. Probably not as early as some of them should have done, and this is particularly with smaller developments, we find it is more tricky, large scale house builders have been doing this for a while now and it has not come as a surprise to them and they have got their ducks in a row, but the smaller developers we are getting them to think about it and I am going to need to deliver BNG so how am I going to do that, am I going to need to do it on-site am I going to need to commit to 30 year management.

I think that has been the key for us and I know a lot of other Essex authorities have looked at that as well off the back of Chelmsford doing that, so I think that has been really helpful so I just encourage anyone I think to look at post development values and submit those with your planning application. Yes, they will be indicative and yes they may change, but it gives a good ballpark and it gives a good understanding of what we are looking at.

Helen: Thanks Kirsty. Adam, picking up on Kirsty's comment just a moment ago about encouraging developers to think about BNG early on in the process. In your experience how early in that design stage are you seeing BNG being considered, is it fully integrated or really is it still a bit of a bold-on?

Adam: I think BNG is absolutely considered at the very early stages of the development. Often what we are seeing is kind of just a metric element, like what is our post-development unit requirement going to be. Once that is understood then it kind of gets left and I think what we really want to encourage is that added interest of again, going back to the stewardship piece, because that is the practical delivery bit that it is easy to fix any stewardship problems during that sort of feasibility and design stage then trying to fix them down the line when plans have been agreed and then you have to go back and alter things and speak to the planners. So it is a lot quicker and cheaper actually to identify any potential issues from a stewardship point of view early on in the process and going back to that earlier point really of making that planning process flexible so not saying we want your reservation certificate with your application because there is there is an evolution through that design stage and different considerations can be brought to the table.

Helen: Does that mean that there is perhaps a direction of travel where, a bit like we might see an architectural masterpiece at the concept stage, by the time you are actually getting to delivery are things becoming more simplified for all of those good reasons?

Adam: Yes I think so and I think on-site and off-site differ. I think off-site plans can remain quite ambitious and we are seeing even more ambitious stuff coming through and I think people are starting to blend much more natural regeneration elements to off-site. I think we are seeing that sort of discussion around rewilding fits into BNG off-site and going back to Ben's point earlier about on-site needing to be a bit more vanilla, I think that is absolutely right, which is a shame, but trying to natural regen and rewilding on a resi development and having sort of wild ponies running around and grazing herds, it is just not practical. It would be amazing, but it is not practical or feasible and from a management company point of view they would be a nightmare.

So I think on-site delivery is really ambitious still, which is great, and I think on-site is just getting parred back a bit and just things like condition criteria. So you might want to have other neutral grassed area, which is great, but the reality is if there is residents driving through it, dog walkers, can you realistically achieve good condition criteria, do you need to bring that back down to moderate and what does that do to your post-development unit yield?

So again those sort of site user considerations need putting in at that really early design stage. I think, as well, ecologies and landscape architects are just about getting into the swing of collaborating. I think early doors there was almost this sort of power struggle between what was being put on-site but I think a collaboration is starting to happen much more naturally now.

It would be grate to see more ambitious plans on-site, but I think realistically there is a lot of constraints the developers have to deal with.

Helen: Just sort of picking up on your comment around vanilla. We have had a question actually popped in the chat, thank you. What are the typical on-site delivery items that you would consider are vanilla?

Adam: For me, other neutral grassland is pretty standard stuff. Native, this is funny one, so mixed grub is something I really like, I think it needs a rebrand because when people pitch a mixed grub they picture dense thickets and possibly someone lurking behind the bushes. So I think mixed grub needs a rebrand to maybe native shrub mix, which is possibly from a resident's point of view much more easy to deal with it from a perception point of view. Again on-site perception is everything.

We are so, as a society, so used to neat, tidy, straight lines, manicured lawns, tropical bedding, and this is a big adjustment going to this sort of nature likes chaos so this messy habitat with eco tones which support loads of biodiversity. People struggle with that and I think there is stuff that managing agents and stewardship companies can do to help signpost residents in areas being maintained. From my point of view I think one of the biggest issues is how the residents receive on-site nature. So I think that is a big design consideration and it needs much more stakeholder engagement I think to deliver it well.

Helen: And what risks would you foresee arising if those contractors or the managing agents do not really fully understand what their obligations are in terms of maintaining that BNG?

Adam: I think one of the biggest issues, and we have seen this historically with before mandatory BNG wildflower on-site are not a new concept, they have been done for years and really well. I think there is pressure from residents who want a wildflower area to maybe be a kick about area so they will, if the managing agent or the manco will not cut the meadow area back the residents will get the mowers and do it themselves and historically it is not great. What is enforcement going to be like? I think with the teeth around BNG what does that actually, if you get residents going to cut areas themselves. So BNG is giving that, hopefully giving enforcement on-site much greater authority. I think it is, and again it is not, we are not necessarily seeing sites come through yet where that this has happened on, so I think the next two or three years as sites work through the process and residents move in, that is when we may see tensions and issues arising and mancos and managing agents have got to deal with those, which are difficult for them I think.

Ben: It is interesting isn't because you can see that in the show home and in the marketing suite there is going to be lots of plans that say that this is the BNG bit and you do not go here and everyone sort of buys into that, because they are excited about moving into their new wonderful home, but when they move out and the next people come in and you start to get that rotation and in year 10 to 15 people are looking at the scruffy bit and saying well why is that not being looked after. It is not BNG, it is about agreeing infrastructure and landscaping.

One of my clients at the minute we are doing stuff in the 106 agreement, but we are also putting it in the transcripts and in the title documents so that there are some things that are almost being flagged to conveyancers in year 10 and 15 that this space is different and you need to flag it and I wonder if that starts to look a bit like good or best practice going forward because, when the failures in ten years, it is how we address it is going to be really interesting.

Adam: Yes and I think as well failures in ten years become very very expensive to rectify and again it goes all the way back to how ambitious do you want to be on-site, if it is going to be terribly expensive to rectify something in ten years compared with another neutral grassland which actually you could get a failure in year one two, maybe five and still recover. Yes, all really important considerations.

Helen: So is BNG really designed to just suite large residential house builders? Can smaller developers really meet these kind of requirements?

Adam: I think it is much easier for the big developments, from a number of different viewpoints as well so I think we are seeing generally plots over 150 generally have the space to deliver on-site. As you go up that scale, it gets more ambitious, you can do more and more and it becomes quite exciting. You get to garden village scale and then you can consider rewilding and you can consider areas for grazing and wild ponies, and also with some of those larger schemes you have got a much cleaner stewardship and governance structure. Often on a large strategic housing scheme you might have a either a community interest company or a trust that is kind of acting as an umbrella and I think that is really good in terms of that long term sustainability of the whole scheme. On smaller sites it is space is obviously a bit restriction due to the density of the houses that are being put in and you go smaller smaller and we do not deal with a lot of small site in terms of under nine plots, but that is where we are constantly seeing pain points whether it is from ecologists or from house builders that just really struggling to deliver anything meaningful on-site but then have to follow that process. So it will be interesting to see how that evolves actually.

Kirsty: If I could just jump in, sorry. I would completely echo that from a local planning authority perspective it is, you know, smaller house builders particularly kind of one two three four houses really challenging to get anything on-site. Space is constrained, you are capped at vegetative garden, you are then looking straight at off-site, we are, that scale of house builder are not looking at BNG from the kind of inception stage of the development. It is a bit of an after thought and that is a real, like you say, pain point, I think and I think this is kind of captured in the government's consultation looking at the exceptions as well. It does seem to be more geared up at the moment towards large scale residential.

Helen: Thank you. We will move on to units in a moment, but I just wanted a final question around the delivery. Are you seeing differences in terms of delivery between residential, which we have talked about a lot today, and commercial schemes?

Adam: I think again, depending on the commercial scheme, if it is a big warehouse or a shed on the motorway logistics site, the maximising the space for that operational output and in a way I think it is then easier for those developers early on to say this, in terms of practical operational function, this site needs to do this, we are therefore going to go straight off-site and I think it is a much easier process for them to work through and I think with on-site, you have got that whole kind of human nature interaction at play as well, so it is not just a case of shall we go on-site or off-site, it is considering that kind of, it has been quite a polarising topic, but should it be on-site should it be off-site, off-site is better for nature, but actually the reason we are in biodiversity crisis is because we are so disconnected, so surely removing nature from people on-site is not going to solve that situation, so I think it is on-site it is a real opportunity for blended models, so do what you can on-site, obviously follow the mitigation hierarchy, do what you can on-site and use off-site where you need to as well.

Helen: Thanks Adam. So moving onto that Ben, where on-site is not possible or not possible enough, how is the market developing and functioning in terms of buying units, what are you seeing 19 months in?

Ben: So I think, so BNG for 30 years it is sort of, it is a pretty long term relationship, right? It is sort of for richer, for poorer, in drought, in flood, in heatwaves, in snowdrifts and not everyone wants long term relationships because sometimes they can be quite difficult and so the off-site unit market has been great because it is much more transactional and so the off-site unit market has been great because it is much more transactional and you are buying a compliance tool, you know, you are buying a certificate that says to your planning authority, either I have not got the space for it, I am worried about the management, I am just really really good at building lovely houses and I am not, my forte is not looking after nature and habitats, but I have found someone who is brilliant at it so I have gone to a dedicated habitat bank.

So I have got my certificate, I have updated my biodiversity game plan Kirsty and colleagues have approved it and I can go and start building and doing what I am good at and I am leaving all those problems with people who are good at fixing and dealing with them, because that is all they do, right, you know you might trade nutrient credits, but really they are BNG specialist and they are good at managing habitat.

So there has not really been a legal. So the legal risks are quite manageable. I think at the start of BNG back in sort of February, March last year there was a lot of added risk in these sort of unit purchase agreements because you are often, as a developer, contracting with a habitat bank who might not have the land, yet, but they are close, and they certainly did not have the conservation covenant law, the 106, because at the start of all BNG there was just nothing there.

So you were saying to habitat bank, I will buy however many hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of units for you, please turn up in two years time when I need them and habitat bank are saying yes do not worry, we have got some land roughly sorted out and we will probably do the conservation coming up.

So there is risk there because there is always that fear stoked by paranoid lawyers like me, that they might not deliver the day before you might commence and you are going to have to go to the market and pay double the price. That is now settling down right, because there are loads of habitat banks, good quality habitat banks who have kind of got a stock room full of units. So they have got their land, they have got the conservation covenant, the shoots are coming up, everything is, it is early, but it is starting and they have got, you have got the confidence that they are going to be able to deliver the ten units to 20 units you have reserved.

So from that respect, a lot of those issues have died down. I think sometimes we, when we defer a piece we are buying a decent amount of units.

So sometimes when developers are buying a large number of units they have been a little bit concerned about reputational issues, rather than legal so look what if we are buying half the units from that habitat bank and it becomes known as the Ben Stansfield habitat bank because I bought units, is that going to be a problem for me? That is not really a major issue to deal with and I suppose the other, not too difficult to get your head around, the other big issue that I have sort of seen is a lot of developers are wanting to do a bit of due diligence on their habitat banks. Again they are not legally responsible and it is a compliance product they buying, but they just want us to have a quick look at the conservation covenant and make sure there is financial security there so that they know the product they are buying from the right sort of entity is going to be looked after for 30 years.

So those are the risks that are sort of being mitigated there.

Kirsty: Sorry, from a local authority perspective how easy or quick is it to buy off-site units and get that agreement in place?

Ben: So at the start it was taking some time because there was not really that standard approach to doing it. So for some clients we looked at about 10 or 12 different terms and conditions, and they were really really quite different and it took us a while to go through and work out where the gaps were. I think now that a number, and we are not just going to market generally, it has sort of gone through that process, habitat banks have refined their terms and conditions and so there has been an evolution of the contract and now they are much more fairly balanced. I have got one at the minute, which we probably started last week, we will probably sign it today or tomorrow. So with a good wind and a good quality habitat bank with decent terms, you can do it in a week.

If you are looking to do something a bit sexier like you are a bit developer and you are going to have 5, 10, 20 projects you might say well let us have a framework agreement and that might take a month or two. So the transacting is really quite quick now which is great. It means that you can get on-site quicker, you can do this project much better. There is a good number of habitat banks out there.

Ben: No, in our notes Helen was going to ask me about how do you get the units, which is something that it comes up quite a lot actually that we have particularly sort, not so much in the national house builders side, they have got great relationships with lots of habitat banks, but more regional projects and SMEs, they are sort of saying to us how do we get these units because we know we are going to have to buy some, and we are in a privileged position here that we know a lot of the habitat banks so we sort of sending notes out to our contacts the one capital, environment banks and the like. There are brokers, who are really good. There are aggregators who are sort of finding the small habitat banks and bringing them together.

One question actually I was going to put to you Kirsty is, is that a role for local authority as well to say to an SME developer I need two units, who do you know is good in Chelmsford borough or nearby so that I am not having to go to the other side of the country and have special risk issues?

Kirsty: Right at the start a bit pre-mandatory BNG so in Essex, I do not know if anyone has done any work in Essex, we have at County Council level we have a BNG coordinator and pre-mandatory BNG we were talking about almost like a match making service. Habitat banks can register or could register. I have got this for offer, this is where I am and then also if we need to match up developers we can kind of refer to that or they can match make themselves. I still think there is a lot of merit in that kind of model, put people in contact, help them out a little bit. But also I think it is, I am not sure on other's experience, but I do not, it is probably fairly easy to find a habitat bank, is it? I am not sure.

Ben: I have not had any situations where we have struggled to get them locally and we have had to sort of buy something a million miles away. It seems to me the market is functioning really pretty well actually, for a nature industry, right.

Adam: Yes, I think so. I think that is sort of apparent as well in terms of how quickly unit prices are levelling out, compared to six months ago, prices are within the two months becoming much more competitive and I think that is because of the availability of units in regions and neighbouring regions. Again, I have seen some LPAs that are kind of delivering like arms' length broker, as a sort of business model themselves. So it would be interesting how that evolves and whether that does become a conflict in terms of private habitat banks, because obviously if the planning authority suggests that the developer uses their arms' length scheme the developer wants the quickest route through to planning and you will probably get that from a … yes so that is an interesting one to see how that evolves over the next year or so.

Ben: Then one thing I was going to mention was the sort of consultation that the government launched, I think it closed actually July time, and I think back at the end of July I was thinking oh that consultation will be June, maybe we will get our answers in October, chances are we will get it the day of the webinar and I will have to quickly reopen it in the morning it has not been published and I was sort of emailing some BNG fellow some fellow BNG nerds last night and this morning and I think there is generally a feeling that that response is going to be towards Christmas now which is a bit of shame.

But that was really focused at SME developers who are struggling, I guess, a bit with the complexity of it because the big house builders have often got a group head of biodiversity who is brilliant and knows absolutely everything about it but the SMEs cannot afford those resources, it is a luxury for them.

We did some work Adam for future homes hub.

Adam: Yes which was really useful and I think, I suppose again it is the threshold between an SME developer and a micro sort of developer and it would be interesting to see again in the consultation what those thresholds, because the micro developers are the ones that are really really, and urban brownfield developments that are really struggling to deliver meaningful BNG, so it will be interesting to see what the thresholds are like in-between any exemptions or I suppose weakening of the rules.

Ben: Yes.

Adam: That actually as well is from a market point of view causing big anxiety. I think there is a lot of landowners and asset managers that we have spoken to that have put schemes on ice because they do not want to get into something that is potentially going to not give them a return. So that again I think early 2026 will be really good to get some reassurance, for the whole market, in terms of what is going on and how things are evolving.

Ben: Yes my secret sort of hope is that they get rid of the spatial multiplier for SME's in these, so if you are building a certain number of homes you can go and buy units in a part of the world where there is not a load of development but there is a real need for habitat improvements and it just enables everyone to benefit rather than just pockets of the country where there is a lot of development, needs and markets.

We have probably got, about ten minutes or so for some questions and they have started to drop in. There is one for you Kirsty, one for you Kirsty about your mandate or your responsibility as the LPA to safeguard the integrity of those on-site schemes. So I guess this is a question around what is your monitoring responsibilities and what, how involved are you going to be in bringing failing schemes up? Actually, sorry, five questions in one. There was also a question earlier about, I guess force majeure events and storms and things like that, so maybe we can pull you in on that Adam on that as well.

Kirsty: I think it is a really difficult question to answer unfortunately. We are not far enough down the line yet that we have really had to grapple with this issue in terms that we have not had any of these issues that have caused us to really look at enforcement or stepping up and monitoring. What we are doing at the moment is making sure that we can put everything we think we will need in place. So, habitat management monitoring plans, asking for reporting in certain years, we are looking at kind of internal management systems for monitoring when monitoring reports are due, so we can follow up on that a bit more proactively, but that in itself is a challenge, it is one of these things that if you are monitoring from when a site commences you have some how got to record that, and we are talking potentially, after we have got over the first few hurdles, 10, 15, 20 years down the line.

So it is a bit of a challenge, section 106 agreements, we are including monitoring these, that in itself was a hurdle to decide what they are and I know a lot of us are still grappling with that. At the moment it is just putting everything that we think we may need in place and I guess we will all learn from the first kind of authority that really has to deal with something that goes a bit wrong.

Adam: I think from a house builder or a developer's point of view I think it is ensuring that there are contingencies factored into those budgets. Just assume that something is not going to work out how you hope it will and if you have got a contingency there that softens any remedial requirements that you have got to do.

I think the other thing we are seeing is what we call the establishment period, so that period from implementation to reaching target condition. That is when it is most intensive in terms of specialist habitat management, the contractor knowing what they are doing and not running over the wrong things with the wrong mower.

So those sort of years one to ten for us are the real sort of high impact areas where stuff could potentially go wrong if not managed properly.

Helen: We have still got questions coming in, thank you everybody for that. We have just had a question here from another local planning authority, Kirsty. Exploring the challenge between creating functional BNG space and the tension with a landscape led design and the inconsistency between the various disciplines that have to come together to create that functional space. Is that something that you and your team been grappling with?

Kirsty: Yes, a little bit. It has definitely come up. I think this is where coming back to our validation requirements and asking for post development metrics and an idea of what you are doing on-site is really helping. We have had instances where a developer has said oh this will be my open space but that conflicts with the BNG that they are intending to deliver on that space. This comes back to Adam's point about the public perception of the space and wanting a wildflower meadow mown down so they can kick a ball about on it, or whatever. So yes, it is a bit of a challenge, but I think asking for that information up front is really helping us with that, because it gives us the power almost, when we are negotiating the planning application, if someone is relying on their open space to also be their BNG habitat we could go back at that point and say you need to think about this a bit more, do you need to change your development layout so that you can accommodate your on-site net gains or do you need to rethink what you are doing with BNG because you cannot have your recreation area and certain BNG requirements. So it is definitely is a challenge, but I think asking for all that information up front really helps with that.

Helen: Thank you. We are nearly out of time so I was just going to ask you all for your reflections on one final point. It was mentioned earlier in the webinar about the BNG consultation that happened earlier this summer. What changes do you think we could expect form the government that might shape how we are delivering BNG in the future? I do not know if it is easier to go first or last on this question. Kirsty, shall I go to you first?

Kirsty: I am definitely expecting some changes to the exemptions that have kind of just been picked up on. I think most other local authorities, anyone that is out there in the webinar from a local authority and all the other ones that I have spoken to, your self build schemes have skyrocketed, never had any self build schemes and now BNG exception everyone is doing a self build scheme. I definitely think the exemptions will be changed. I hope that we are not looking at the proposal to completely kind of take away mandatory BNG for anything under kind of ten units. That seems sort of a backwards step for me, we have done all this work to get it in place and we are trying to build momentum particularly with those very micro sort of small house builders, so it would be a bit of a shame if we did a backwards step there. But I think exemptions could definitely make it easier.

Helen: Thank you. Adam.

Adam: I think I would echo those points really. I think they would need to make it easier for the SME and micro house builders to build, but equally we need to make sure that from a new market point of view that people who are getting into investing in nature markets still have that interest to do it. I think that is stuff going on parallel to BNG in terms of corporate nature markets which is probably another topic for another day, but it would be interesting to see how many habitat bank providers have to switch over to the nature markets in terms of a mitigation strategy to help them continue to operate, because if there is a 70% reduction in people that need BNG, all those new habitat bank providers they are going to be scratching around for business I think which is a worry.

Helen: Ben any final thoughts.

Ben: So I have already mentioned that my wish for the spatial risk multiplier to go for SMEs, but I think also looking at the hierarchy it would be quite good so that you can as an SME potentially go straight to units as well without having to worry about their ongoing management. There is a very interesting comment actually in the Q&A about the factual units are brilliant for developers but not as good for habitat banks and how we do that. So I appreciate I am taking a problem away from developers and pushing it to someone else, so apologies for that. And then one other hope is that the minimalist exemption which I think is currently at 25 square metres, if you mess around with anything less than 25 square metres you are free of BNG, there is talk about going to 50, 100, 200 and I just hope that does not go too high because 50 sounds sensible, but going up to 200 as de minimis is a pretty big habitat you could be messing with and get away with it. So I am hoping the government does not sort of throw out the baby with the bath water on that one.

Helen: Thank you. So we are nearly out of time. We have got a handful of Q&A that we have not managed to get to today so we will pick those up after the session. We have covered a lot of ground. Clearly costs implications of BNG is something which is becoming a larger conversational piece and also those pain points for SMEs. So let us continue the conversation on those points.

At the end of the webinar when you finish there will be a very short feedback survey that pops up. We would be really grateful if you would answer that, it helps us organise future events.

Kirsty, Adam, thank you so much for being part of today for sharing your thoughts and your knowledge, it has been a pleasure to have the conversation.

Thank you too to everyone that has joined today. There are well over a hundred of you, it does show that this is and remains an important topic and Ben and I do look forward to having future opportunities to continue the conversation, as I say, with you all.

So it just remains for me to say thank you very much and have a good afternoon.