Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential benefits of digital tools in helping small and medium-sized developers to comply with biodiversity net gain on small sites.

The Government intends to implement mandatory biodiversity net gain for most new major development under the Town and Country Planning Act (1990) from November this year, for minor development from April 2024 and for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) from 2025.

The temporary transition for small sites until April 2024 is intended to lessen the short-term administrative burdens and to allow local planning authorities and smaller developers a longer period to prepare for biodiversity net gain.

The relative regulatory burden of BNG for small developers can be higher, so this transition is important to ensure time for small developers to familiarise themselves with the new requirement, associated guidance, and the small sites metric. We are developing tools that will help small, medium, and large developers alike. We are also providing training and guidance that will support developers in the necessary assessments and processes.

In addition, we are aware a number of digital tools are being developed in the private sector to support small and medium sized developers.

Given that this is a temporary transition until April 2024, and that small development only makes up a small proportion of overall land use change from non-developed to urban land cover[1], we expect this transition period will a limited impact on biodiversity.

We also know that some developers are already voluntarily delivering biodiversity net gain ahead of it becoming mandatory. The transition period for small sites does not prohibit developers from delivering voluntary BNG ahead of April 2024.

Defra intends to lay the small sites metric alongside the statutory metric ahead of implementation in November.

[1] Net gain impact assessment (publishing.service.gov.uk) Section 2.2.2