Not sure what to write to show how you will avoid or minimise impacts to habitats? Use our tool to help generate text:
When considering how to achieve BNG on your site, it's essential to consider different means of doing so in the order defined by the 'mitigation hierarchy'. In practice, this means considering the following options in order:
Avoid causing harm. For example, by building on land that has no habitat value.
Minimise causing harm. For example, by building on land within my site that has the least baseline biodiversity value.
Compensate for harm by remediating on-site. For example, by:
enhancing existing onsite habitat;
creating new onsite habitat.
Offset harm by securing off-site gains. For example, by:
purchasing statutorily compliant units;
as a last resort, purchasing statutory credits from the government.
Avoiding and minimising harm is almost always the most cost-effective approach, and has the benefit of being best for nature. You will almost always need to seek some level of compensation or offset, however, because the law requires net gain rather than just net zero biodiversity change. Nevertheless, it's important to work down the mitigation hierarchy as you consider your options, choosing proportionate and reasonable options as you go.
You can read more about the mitigation hierarchy on our blog.
Examples of things that one can write to show that the mitigation hierarchy is being complied with. Use these as a inspiration for your own comments.
"Construction work is only taking place on habitats with a low value"
"Habitats are being replaced on a like for like or like for better basis"
"Works were designed to avoid and (where this was not possible) minimise impacts on any habitat rated "moderate" or higher"