First Habitat Banks secured in Somerset

We've recently successfully completed our first legal agreements to secure Habitat Banks in Somerset. These Habitat Banks will deliver habitat enhancement and creation works on three sites near Wiveliscombe, Shepton Mallet and Yeovil with a view to providing Biodiversity Units to meet Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements of developments in Somerset and potentially beyond.

Off-site BNG delivery is a critical component for enabling new development. Ensuring that this can happen in Somerset is an important step forward.

The sites are at:

• Bathealton Nature and Conservation Reserve (near Wiveliscombe) involving grassland enhancement and scrub, hedgerow, orchard, pond and watercourse habitat creation
• Yew Tree Farm (near Shepton Mallet) involving orchard planting in place of existing grassland pasture (which is also doubling up as a permanent land use change to generate nutrient neutrality ‘P Credits’), and
• Woodrow Farm (near Yeovil) also involving orchard planting in place of existing grassland pasture and doubling up for ‘P Credits’.

The details of how each habitat is enhanced, created, managed and monitored are set out in a Habitat Management and Monitoring Plan (HMMP). The legal agreements secure delivery of the HMMP against the land for a period of at least 30 years from the date at which habitat creation and enhancement works are completed for a particular phase.

The landowner/gain site operator must submit monitoring reports to us periodically for review. Once they've registered the site on the national gain site register (Bathealton and Yew Tree Farm are already on there), they can then allocate biodiversity units from the site to developments, helping to unlock all kinds of developments, including much needed delivery of new homes, economic development and infrastructure to demonstrate meeting their statutory BNG requirements.

This is an important step in unlocking future development where it's justified as necessary for it to rely upon off-site rather than on-site BNG delivery. It enables that off-site delivery to occur in Somerset, which better meets our BNG Guidance, is more cost-effective for Somerset developers, further contributes towards delivering local nature recovery, and also boosts green investment in our area's natural capital.

The habitat enhancement and creation works will deliver an uplift in the habitat value of each site, providing a benefit to local wildlife and generating Biodiversity Units to meet development requirements. This will help contribute towards delivery of the forthcoming Local Nature Recovery Strategy, and the country’s 30by30 targets.

In the case of Bathealton, the landowner will be working to establish an educational access programme for local schools as well as a limited permissive access route for local residents, helping to improve people’s access to nature and understanding of nature recovery actions.

In the case of Yew Tree Farm and Woodrow Farm, the schemes also provide a permanent land use change to ensure that the land cannot be used for intensive cattle grazing, reducing phosphate generation from activities on the land, which can damage the internationally important Somerset Levels and Moors and the species that depend upon them.

Both sites were already legally secured to generate so called ‘P Credits’ to help new developments achieve nutrient neutrality. This scheme ensures the permanency of that scheme and that it delivers real wider benefits. As well as the above, the tree planting will contribute towards targets set out in the Somerset Tree Strategy, and will potentially also help to lock up more carbon and reduce runoff and slow the flow of water, providing natural flood management benefits.

These are the first 3 of a number of sites in the process of being secured with us as BNG Habitat Banks following our Environmental Call for Sites last year. 2 further sites have also been secured via external 'Responsible Bodies' (i.e. not us), at Lower Toulton Farm (Cothelstone, near Taunton) and Home Farm (near Curry Rivel). We're aware of them but they are not legally secured with us. Nevertheless, they also present opportunities for developers to source local units and to enhance Somerset's nature recovery.

More to come on other sites soon!