Castle Point’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.

Castle Point’s pre-application advice service can be found here.

Castle Point is part of the Greater Essex Local Nature Recovery Strategy. Information can be found here.

Specific BNG requirements are set out in Policy 3.1.2.1 of the BNG SPD (adopted January 2024).

3.1.2.1 BNG, in its initial implementation following January 2024, is a different way of designing a development scheme to leave the natural environment in a better state than it was found. In accordance with the Environment Act 2021, BNG is a means for creating or enhancing wildlife habitats and ecological features through applying the mitigation hierarchy in conjunction with development to deliver improvements for biodiversity. The Council advises applicants to engage with an ecologist at an early stage and facilitate collaboration between the ecologist, landscape consultant and design team at the earliest stage in the design process. It is difficult to retrofit biodiversity net gain so the earlier an applicant engages with an ecologist the easier it is to achieve biodiversity net gain.

See also the Local Plan.

Specific Strategic Significance requirements are set out in Policy 3.2.2 of the BNG SPD (adopted January 2024).

3.2.2.1 Within the metric calculation, there is a multiplier for strategic significance. This means that certain sites, locations, and habitats are given a higher value, and therefore allocated higher biodiversity units based on their strategic significance.

3.2.2.2 High = Where the location has been identified within a local plan, strategy or policy as being ecologically important for the specific habitat type or where that habitat has been identified as being locally ecologically important, this includes Local Wildlife Sites that have gone through the formal adoption process.

3.2.2.3 Medium = Where there is no relevant plan, strategy or policy in place, professional judgement may be used to justify the use of the medium strategic significance category. This judgement should consider the importance of that habitat in providing a linkage between other strategic locations. Ecologist consultants’ judgement could be used to determine medium strategic significance, although a robust justification for this will be required.