Government digs grave for wildlife - The Wildlife Trusts

New proposals on Biodiversity Net Gain from UK Government will harm whole communities so that a few can profit more.

The UK Government has announced a consultation proposing reduced Biodiversity Net Gain requirements for small and medium building developments in England. As the latter make up over 70% of all housing developments, the impacts on the natural world will be severe.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says: “It's deeply disappointing to see that the Labour Government is now thinking of scrapping the requirement for Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) for small sites after many companies have already invested £millions to enable it to happen, and just six months after this same Government published a paper in which they reinforced their "commitment to BNG". Nothing undermines private sector investment more than governments that chop and change their policy positions on the basis of whichever narrow vested-interest met them last. Worse still, this sort of backsliding rewards those laggard developers that have been dragging their feet about implementation of Biodiversity Net Gain and penalises those leading developers that embraced it early on and are showing how well it can be done. This is policy making on the hoof, and it's a shoddy way to go about it.”

Joan Edwards OBE, director of policy and public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts says: “This is bad news for nature and communities – it is yet another appalling example of the Government breaking its promise to put nature at the heart of housebuilding. Building developments can have a huge impact on wildlife and it’s only fair they should make up for this by increasing natural habitats on-site or nearby. The UK Government’s proposal to exempt small developments from delivering Biodiversity Net Gain and contributing towards nature recovery fails to recognise the significant cumulative impacts such development can have.”