If multiple habitats from multiple off-site locations are required, each site may be identified through a unique off-site reference. This should be entered in the ‘Off-site reference’ column within off-site data entry sheets.

The Government will publish guidance on what LPAs and responsible bodies should take into consideration when creating legal agreements to secure biodiversity gains. This will cover things such as checking that there are no conflicts with other interests on the land (such as shooting or mineral working rights), checking that any necessary permissions have been obtained (such as planning permission, felling licences) and consulting aerodrome safeguarding authorities where applicable (HM Government, February 2023, link).

‘Any landowners or managers will be able to create or enhance habitat for the purpose of selling biodiversity units, provided that they are able to meet the requirements of the policy, including additionality and register eligibility requirements, and demonstrate no significant adverse impacts on priority habitats’ (HM Government, February 2023, link).

The Government has said it will allow developers to sell the excess biodiversity units as off-site gains for another development, provided that this excess gain is registered and that there is genuine additionality for the excess units sold. This means that these units should be delivered above and beyond the gains required by the original development to meet the mandatory BNG requirement and to make the development acceptable to the local planning authority. These ‘excess’ gains must be identified clearly as such in the original development’s biodiversity gain plan (HM Government, February 2023, link).

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The Government has said that it does not intend to set a time limit on how long biodiversity units can be banked before they are allocated to a development. A habitat bank would need to be able to record and provide suitable monitoring information to demonstrate that the initial works to create or enhance the habitat had been completed by a given date if they wish to take advantage of the ‘advanced creation’ function in the metric (HM Government, February 2023, link).

For each module there is a separate trading summary for each distinctivness band of habitat.

Local authorities can produce off-site BUs and sell them, but they cannot direct buyers towards their land in preference over other suppliers to the market unless there are clear ecological justifications for doing so (HM Government, February 2023, link).

‘Suppliers of biodiversity units will be able to sell to developers anywhere in England, provided that the use of those units is appropriate for the development in question and the distance between the development and the off-site habitat is properly accounted for in the biodiversity metric’ (HM Government, February 2023, link).

Payment terms can be agreed between the developer and the Off-site provider. The Government has said ‘We will detail in guidance the expectation that funds are held securely so that outcomes are secure in the long-term, but it will be for the buyer, seller, and any other parties to the agreement to agree payment terms’ (HM Government, February 2023, link).

The Government has said that, where planned habitat enhancements have been achieved and evidence of this can be provided, further enhancements should be possible before the end of the existing legal agreement (HM Government, February 2023, link).

Biodiversity units will be subject to VAT when they are sold.(HM Government, February 2023, link).

To count towards a development’s net gain requirement, off-site biodiversity gains will need to be secured through a conservation covenant or planning obligation and registered prior to final approval of the biodiversity gain plan. The process and eligibility criteria for registering biodiversity gain sites are set out in Part 3 ‘the biodiversity gain site register’.

Off-site habitat creation or enhancement does not need to be completed prior to its registration or the sale and allocation of biodiversity units to a development. To minimise delays between development impacts and the delivery of compensatory habitat, we propose to require off-site works to commence as soon as is feasible, and no more than 12 months after the discharge of the mandatory pre-commencement biodiversity net gain condition. We are considering whether to set this requirement through off-site eligibility criteria or as a consideration for biodiversity gain plan approval. This should be reflected in the conservation covenants or planning obligations used to secure the gains and will be considered in the approval of the biodiversity gain plan.

Where possible, we will encourage habitat banking to allow enhancements to be delivered before the development takes place (see Part 3 ‘habitat banking’). Any delay in enhancement (relative to the loss of on-site habitats) must be reflected in the biodiversity metric calculation, meaning that a lower number of biodiversity units is generated. This will mean that long delays to the delivery of habitats would require more enhancement to be done, usually at greater cost.

The Environment Act states that biodiversity gain sites (off site) must be maintained for at least 30 years after the completion of the works to create or enhance the habitat. We will encourage and enable developers and landowners to secure sites for a longer period (or in perpetuity) where possible through policy and guidance.

Biodiversity gain site enhancements will be secured through conservation covenants or planning obligations which can ensure that habitats are maintained even if the land is sold.

The UK Government has amended the Environment Act to enable future increases to the 30-year minimum period (for on-site and off-site gains). The UK Government will consider increasing this minimum for new developments and registrations after evaluating mandatory biodiversity net gain practice.

Any increase in the minimum duration would be made after consideration of the impacts on the supply of potential gain sites and, to avoid disrupting establishment of the market, would not take place in the first 3 years after commencement of mandatory biodiversity net gain. Any increase would not retrospectively change pre-existing agreements at that time.

Any landowners or managers will be able to create or enhance habitat for the purpose of selling biodiversity units, provided that they are able to meet the requirements of the policy, including additionality and register eligibility requirements, and demonstrate no significant adverse impacts on protected and priority habitats.

Suppliers of biodiversity units will be able to sell to developers anywhere in England, provided that the use of those units is appropriate for the development in question and the distance between the development and the off-site habitat is properly accounted for in the biodiversity metric.

We do not currently propose to establish a centralised trading platform for biodiversity units or for the UK Government to take on other roles which could be performed by the private sector or other third parties, such as brokering.

We expect the price for biodiversity units to be agreed between buyers and sellers, and for them to ensure that it is sufficient to cover the costs of creating or enhancing the habitat and maintaining it for a minimum of 30 years. It will also be for the buyer, seller, and any other parties to the agreement to agree payment terms, for example whether there would be one lump-sum payment, staged payments, or payment by results.

The market for biodiversity units will not operate in isolation, and we are aware that landowners and managers are keen to understand whether they will be able to combine or ‘stack’ payments for different environmental services from the same parcel of land. Further information is set out in Part 3 ‘additionality’ of this consultation.

We are aware that farmers want to understand how committing land for habitat creation or enhancement will affect their eligibility for Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief. Work is underway to provide clear guidance on this.

Information in the biodiversity gain site register will be publicly accessible and, over time, we expect the private sector to play a role in collating and sharing market supply, demand, and price information.

We are publishing market analysis[1] alongside this consultation which includes estimates of potential biodiversity unit supply and demand in each planning authority area and summarises the available evidence on biodiversity unit prices.

Work is ongoing to develop our approach to regulating the biodiversity unit market, as part of broader ongoing work on environmental markets.

The Environment Act states that the person who is to establish and maintain the biodiversity gain site register may be the Secretary of State, Natural England, or another person (Environment Act 2021, S100 (4)(a), link). The register will assess whether the application (and its proposed enhancements) meets a set of eligibility criteria.

The UK Government will appoint Natural England as the Biodiversity Gain Site Register Operator, responsible for establishing and maintaining the register (HM Government, February 2023, link).

Applicants will be able to appeal where an application for registration of a gain site is refused by the register operator. The Government will set a maximum time after an application is refused within which an appeal must be made.

Applicants will be able to appeal against:

The Government has said that both on-site and off-site information on biodiversity gains should be accessible in one place and so are exploring how on-site information can be extracted from planning permissions and published on the register (HM Government, February 2023, link).

The Government has said it will set an achievable determination time for applications to the register in consultation with Natural England. This is likely to be around 6 weeks (HM Government, February 2023, link).

Larger sites or habitat banks may provide biodiversity units to more than one development. It may therefore be preferable for these sites to register some details about the whole site (such as location, consents to carry out works) when the first parcel is allocated. We will continue to work with providers of habitat banks and larger gain sites during the transition period to explore how we can streamline the application process.

For a site to be considered eligible for inclusion on the register it must meet the following proposed criteria:

The time taken to determine an application will vary based on the size and complexity of the site. To provide certainty for developers and landowners, we intend to set out in regulation a maximum determination period, unless otherwise agreed between both parties. Our assumption at this stage is that this period should be 28 days.

The register operator will, in confirming that the application complies with the criteria, ask for the following information to be provided:

This register will, as a minimum, detail: