A focus on biodiversity and ecosystem resilience
In the current series, Planet Earth III, David Attenborough and the BBC have once again shown us how unique and fragile some habitats and species across the world are. This is also true at a more local level. The State of Nature 2023 reports a decline in the abundance and distribution of many terrestrial, freshwater and marine life species in the UK. It suggests that this is being caused by a range of pressures including intensive agricultural management, climate change and the overexploitation of the seas, pollution, invasive non-native species and habitat management as well as emerging pressures from wildlife disease and funding for conservation
[1]. There are success stories too, with an upward trend in Grey Seal population in Wales, for example
[2]. Within this context, Welsh Government has prioritised delivery of its COP15 commitments in publishing an update to Planning Policy Wales (PPW) in relation to the natural environment, which takes immediate effect.
Future Wales: The National Plan 2040 (2021) introduced specific policies that safeguard areas for the purposes of improving the resilience of ecological networks and ecosystems services, to identify areas for the provision of green infrastructure, and to secure biodiversity enhancement i.e. the plan introduced a requirement for development to deliver a net benefit for biodiversity (NBB).
Welsh Government has since been working on updating Planning Policy Wales to ensure that NBB and other benefits to habitats and ecosystem resilience are ingrained in all elements of national policy. Lichfields has been keeping up-to-date with the expected changes:
Unveiling Wales’ Biodiversity Policy: Decoding the Changes Ahead following a consultation earlier this year. This latest blog reflects on the recent
announcement from the Minister for Climate Change confirming that changes will be made to PPW Edition 12 when it’s published later this year. However, given their importance, the
changes to Chapter 6 have been introduced with immediate effect.
Summary of Key Changes
The vast majority of the changes are as expected and summarised in our
earlier blog but there are some new requirements that will have implications for applicants and local authorities. We explore these additional changes below.
Net Benefit for Biodiversity
1. The immediate changes relating to NBB are much similar to those proposed in the Spring 2023 consultation but with additional reinforcement of the need for a holistic approach to designing proposals:
“strategic planning and individual development proposals must avoid loss in the extent of biodiversity and incorporate measures to appropriately maintain and enlarge existing habitats, especially where extent is small or declining through habitat restoration and creation with adjoining and nearby areas, green infrastructure features and networks”
Green Infrastructure
2. There is now a more clear-cut focus on maximising the planning system’s contribution to the protection and provision of green infrastructure assets. PPW now requires applicants to take “a proactive and spatial approach to development, which links to wider activities being undertaken by local authorities, to protect and provide green infrastructure…”.
3. Requirement to establish arrangements to promote collaboration across local authority borders, especially where the provision of offsite compensatory land to address biodiversity loss and enhancements is required.
4. Details of the requirements for LPA’s when producing Green Infrastructure Assessments include:
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Identifying features (e.g. landscape, biodiversity) in which green infrastructure plays a part;
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Identifying and demonstrating how a NBB will be secured and the attributes of ecosystem resilience enhanced;
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The reduction of pollution;
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The climate emergency by ensuring the multi-functional benefits provided by trees and woodlands are identified;
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The health and wellbeing of communities by ensuring they have accessible natural green spaces of various scales within reasonable walking and cycling distance; and,
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How the planning system should secure the implementation and management of green infrastructure, recognising its dynamic nature over the long term.
The Step-Wise Approach to Addressing Impact
5. Further details on the step-wise approach, including that each stage must be accompanied by a long term management plan of agreed and appropriate avoidance, minimisation, mitigation/restoration and compensation measures, alongside the agreed enhancement measures. The management plan should set out the immediate and on-going management of the site, future monitoring arrangements for all secured measures and it should clearly identify the funding mechanisms in place to meet the management plan objectives. It must set out how NBB will be achieved within as short a time as possible and be locally responsive and relevant to local circumstances.
6. Additional policy/requirements for each stage of the step-wise approach are as follows:
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Avoid: Proposals in statutory designated sites are, as a matter of principle, unacceptable and therefore must be excluded from site searches undertaken by developers. This principle also extends to those sites containing protected species and habitats which are irreplaceable and must be
safeguarded. It will be wholly exceptional for development to be justifiable in such instances.
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Minimise: Ensure that retained habitats continue to be well connected to existing habitats to provide connectivity for key species and ensuring the favourable conservation status of local species populations is maintained; use of appropriate buffers to protect existing features from construction and operational impacts.
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Mitigate: Effective mitigation or restoration measure should be incorporated into the design proposal following the consideration of steps one and two above and must be designed to address the specific negative impacts by repairing damaged habitats and disrobed species. They should seek to restore in excess “like for like”. In designing mitigation measures where uncertainty exists, applications should assume a significant effect.
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Compensate on-site: Where like for like mitigation measures are not possible, it may be necessary to consider on site compensation measures in the first instance.
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Compensate off-site: Off-site compensation measures should be considered as last resort, guided by place-based evidence (i.e. informed by a full ecological assessment). Green Infrastructure Assessment should provide a spatial guide to opportunities already identified for securing NBB.
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Refuse: Where the adverse effect on biodiversity and ecosystem resilience outweighs other material considerations, the development should be refused.
Designated Sites
7. A presumption against development which is not necessary for the management of the site in a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). What may be necessary for the management of the site will need to be considered on a case-by-case basis but is likely to be limited to activities needed to meet its conservation objectives, natural flood management, other appropriate nature-based solutions and needs to secure its role as a ‘living landscape’. There is also a presumption against development that is likely to damage a SSSI. The avoidance of development also applies to Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), Special Protection Areas (SPAs), RAMSARs and National Nature Reserves.
Trees, Hedgerows and Woodlands
8. Additional requirement for LPAs to recognise the importance of trees within the countryside as well as urban trees.
Lichfields Thoughts
Welsh Government’s focus on delivering NBB is entirely consistent with wider environmental objectives in Wales and elsewhere in the UK. This latest update to PPW reinforces national policy to protect and enhance biodiversity and to increase the resilience of ecosystems and we are likely to see LPAs seeking clearer information on how development proposals can achieve and secure NBB.
The absence of a quantitative metric for NBB (as is being introduced in England for biodiversity net gain), provides flexibility for applicants and LPAs in Wales to consider the proposals on a site specific basis and in the context of wider biodiversity aspirations for the area instead of having to conform to a fixed method of calculating gain. The requirement to provide “like for like” mitigation through the step-wise approach does somewhat reduce this otherwise helpful flexibility.
Applicants will need to work through their green infrastructure strategies from an early stage of the design process rather than retrofitting green infrastructure. Design teams comprising ecologists, landscape architects, arboriculturalists and surface water drainage engineers will need to work closely with the project architects to create well-considered and potentially innovative design solutions that balance these needs with wider sustainable development objectives, and of course, the objectives of the developer and the viability of development.
Except for in designated sites, whilst there is no fundamental change to the principle of the step-wise approach, we suspect applicants will now have to carefully consider how to best demonstrate the step-wise approach has been followed. Time will tell if any of the changes or reinforced policies will require further clarification. The amendments to PPW Chapter 6 are lengthy but there are elements of the step-wise approach where what precisely is needed to satisfy the policy remains undefined, e.g. what exactly needs to be provided in a management plan? This will allow planning authorities to consider applications on a case-by-case basis and to take a sensible and proportionate approach reflecting the site and nature of proposal. Although, we may also find an element of inconsistency between authorities in the forthcoming months.
The presumption to avoid development in SACs, SPAs, RAMSARs, SSSIs and NNRs presents a need for relevant land and business owners to think about the management of their land and property in these areas on a long-term basis. For those who own SSSIs, there may be opportunities to explore how the living landscape can be improved, including for example, the conversion of vacant barns to tourist accommodation.
With a focus on biodiversity in Wales and elsewhere in the UK, there is a substantial increase in workloads for ecologists, arboriculturists, landscape architects and undoubtedly local planning authorities. Do local authorities, in particular, have the resources to positively respond to the above policy changes? Will there be impacts upon achieving target determination dates at already stretched local planning authority departments? Planning ahead, working with the LPAs from an early stage, and allowing time for each stage of the pre-application and determination stages will certainly be a necessity.
The planning system can only do so much in relation to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience as there is a need for wider initiatives to be delivered too. However, the planning system can help to ensure that where development does take place, and indeed it inevitably needs to, we find opportunities to play our role in helping our planet.
[1] State of Nature 2023 pages 27-29
[2] State of Nature 2023 page 121
