Fenland’s BNG level is set at 10%.

The NPPF states: "applicants are encouraged to consider biodiversity net gain early in the development process and factor it into site selection and design. Where appropriate, they should discuss the biodiversity net gain requirements for their development upfront with the relevant local planning authority utilising any pre-application advice services offered by them. This could help establish whether development proposals would be subject to biodiversity net gain and, if they are, enable feedback on the proposed strategy for achieving the biodiversity gain objective and consideration of the Biodiversity Gain Hierarchy to inform the design of the proposals"

Please note, If you work for the LPA and wish to add additional information, please inform the Joe's Blooms team here.

Fenland’s pre-application advice service can be foundhere.

Fenland is part of the Cambridgeshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy. Information can be foundhere.

Specific BNG requirements are set out in Policy 20.29 the Local Plan (adopted August 2022).

Development proposals will need to follow the ‘mitigation hierarchy’ of avoid, mitigate, compensate. It is intended that biodiversity improvements will be provided on-site for qualifying development proposals67. However, in some circumstances off-site mitigation may be possible. Opportunities to achieve net gain on-site must be fully explored to ensure that loss of biodiversity is avoided or minimised before options for off-site compensation are considered. Where not possible to provide on-site, the improvements should be made to ‘local nature recovery strategies’ which the Council will help develop with the appointed responsible authority68 with the delivery mechanism of net gain in these areas set out potentially through a Cambridgeshire-wide mechanism. If net gain cannot be delivered locally then developers will be able to invest in ‘nationally strategic habitats’ with the purchase of government-provided biodiversity credits.

Specific Strategic Significance requirements are set out in Policy 6.2.1 of the Interim Recovery Network (adopted July 2023).

Biodiversity Net Gain through the planning system is measured using the Defra Biodiversity Metric (latest version 4.0 as at May 2023). In calculating the biodiversity units allocated to each habitat, a strategic significance score is applied, depending on a site’s location in terms of local strategies, which if high or medium will increase the number of biodiversity units. There are three strategic significance scores: