Reacting to biodiversity net gain developments

Hugh Townsend, founding partner of Townsend Chartered Surveyors, writes for the Western Morning News to respond to recent farming news from Parliament relating to biodiversity net gain (BNG) policies

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> Hugh Townsend, founding partner of Townsend Chartered Surveyors

(Townsend Chartered Surveyors)

HERE has been a lot of good news for the BNG market following announcements in Parliament on December 17 and Royal Assent being given to the Planning and Infrastructure Act on December 18.

1. Certainty over exemptions applying on only up to 0.2 ha of non-brownfield sites. We await the Defra modelling in 2026 as to what effect this will have on the percentage of units needed for these exempt sites of the total expected to be sold and therefore the impact on the BNG market. We suspect this will be a much smaller percentage/impact than has already been debated which has been based on the number sales and lot sizes and not the total number of units sold so far, as there have been a very high number of very small lot sizes sold so far, which ends up as a small percentage of total units sold caught by the 0.20 ha site exemption.

2. Increase in demand from Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) sites from May 2026 confirmed again, which is likely to impact the market earlier than expected, with the Government taking powers to direct projects outside of the usual development consent process and faster procedures for legal challenges.

3. Likely easing of access to offsite units.