General Advice
Local validation requirements here
Darlington’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.
Pre-Application Advice Service
Darlington’s pre-application advice service can be found here.
Local Nature Recovery Strategy
Darlington is part of the Tees Valley Local Nature Recovery Strategy. Information can be found here.
Specific Requirements
Specific BNG requirements are set out in Policy ENV8 of the Local Plan (drafted February 2022).
Development proposals will be required to provide net gains in biodiversity (prevailing in national policy) and demonstrate achievement of this using the Defra Biodiversity Metric. Development proposals that are situated within or adjacent to sites of biodiversity importance as identified in Policy ENV 7, or that are likely to have an adverse impact upon such sites(56) or upon sites that have a reasonable likelihood of hosting protected and/or priority species, will need to follow the sequence of actions set out below to identify how harm to biodiversity has been avoided, or failing that, adequately mitigated.
Strategic Significance
Specific Strategic Significance requirements are set out in the BNG Guidance (adopted February 2024).
The options for scoring each habitat parcel are:
1. High Strategic Significance – formally identified in local strategy, plan or policy (this decision must be justified in the ‘Assessor comments’ section of the metric calculation tool). Until the LNRS is available, the following sources of evidence can be used to identify sites of high strategic significance:
On the Baseline Tab
Land adjacent to Habitats of Principal Importance.
Land adjacent to designated sites (SSSIs, Local Wildlife Sites, Local Nature Reserves.
On the Habitat Enhancement and Habitat Creation Tabs
Land adjacent to Habitats of Principal Importance on which it is proposed to create habitats of types compatible with the adjacent HPI.
Land adjacent to designated sites (SSSI, Local Wildlife Site, Local Nature Reserve) where the habitats proposed to be created are compatible with the interest features of the designated site. Similarly land within Local Wildlife Sites where proposed enhancement will improve the condition of the LWS.
HPI can be found on the DEFRA Magic mapping website – go to Habitats and Species / Habitats / Other / Priority Habitats Inventory. Boundaries of SSSIs, Local Wildlife Sites, Local Nature Reserves and the Southeast Northumberland Wildlife Network can be found on the Darlington Plan Policies Map under Local Plan Policy ENV 7.
2. Medium Strategic Significance – location ecologically desirable but not identified in a local strategy, plan or policy. Professional judgement is applied, and the location is deemed ecologically desirable for a particular habitat type, whether recorded in the site baseline, being created or enhanced. The decision should be justified, and evidence provided in the ‘Assessor comments’ section of the metric calculation tool.
3. Low Strategic Significance – all other sites.