Potentially – it is possible to consider on-site retention/enhancement/creation measures as part of the District Licensing assessment, provided that those measures will be of value to great crested newt conservation. If these actions are being entered into a BNG metric and being considered part of your compensation requirements in the great crested newt assessment, it is important that additionality rules are satisfied. DEFRA’s policy is that at least 10% of the mandatory biodiversity unit gain above No Net Loss in the BNG metric must be strictly additional, however, sufficient units to reach No Net Loss may be multipurpose (species and BNG compensation). If you think any on-site BNG retention, enhancement or creation measures would qualify for the District Licence please contact us to discuss, if you have not yet applied to use the District Licensing Scheme please email info@naturespaceuk.com, if you have enquired and have been assigned a case officer, please contact them directly.

In practice, if on-site proposals compensate for impacts on great crested newts through the retention, creation or enhancement of habitat, under the District Licence, there is an obligation for that habitat to meet its licensed compensation requirements for 25 years. In the first instance, NatureSpace would require a habitat management and monitoring plan (HMMP) to be drawn up to ensure any on-site works considered during the District Licence assessment are delivered and managed appropriately. Annual reporting on the condition of these habitats would be required along with appropriate management and a minimum of eight great crested newt pond occupancy surveys undertaken over a 25-year period. In most cases the costs associated with the management and monitoring, along with the associated legal costs would outweigh any cost saving in not treating the site as whole site loss (in the District Licence assessment). As a result, this option is only available in exceptional circumstances, where there is a clear conservation benefit in doing so.

Potentially – if the retained habitat is not directly or indirectly impacted by the development, retains connectivity to the wider landscape, the area is suitable to support a great crested newt population and no licensable activities will be carried out in the retained area of the site, then NatureSpace can consider this as ‘retained’ in the District Licence impact assessment. See Q1 for details on our HMMP legal agreement for all retained habitats under the District Licence. It would be up to the developer and the site ecologist to comply with the licenced Impact Plan and HMMP Plan, there would be compliance checks undertaken by the planning authority and any breaches would need to be reported to NatureSpace and subsequently Natural England.

No – There is no legal mechanism under the licence for habitat created and managed under agreement with any party other than the compensation delivery partner (The Newt Conservation Partnership) to count towards off-site compensation requirements under the District Licensing Scheme. Similarly, off-site measures outside the area subject to the planning application, are unable to be incorporated in the development site impact assessment under the District Licence.

Additionally, District Licensing operates by cumulating compensation requirements to off-set impacts under all authorised developments at a strategic level, with a positive ratio of compensation delivery to impacts maintained within the strategy area – generally at county level. This facilitates a regional conservation strategy that contributes to improving conservation status of great crested newts locally. All compensation delivered under the scheme is strategically designed to contribute to the regional conservation strategy, and there are strict requirements that it must meet to be counted, including location within a spatial strategy. As a result, NatureSpace via the Newt Conservation Partnership must design and deliver, as well as manage and monitor (secured via long-term legal agreement), all compensation under the District Licensing Scheme.

Potentially – our integrated approach to BNG can allow your District Licensing compensation to count towards up to No Net Loss in some circumstances. District Licensing operates by cumulating compensation requirements to off-set impacts under all authorised developments at a regional level, with a positive ratio of compensation delivery to impacts. This facilitates a regional conservation strategy that contributes to improving conservation status of great crested newts locally. However, this means individual compensation actions are not linked to a specific development site. Additionally, District Licensing compensation is subject to different legal mechanisms and requirements to BNG, the impact assessments do not align spatially, scheme longevities are different and due to its nature and the specifics of the BNG metric, District Licensing compensation delivers a relatively small number of biodiversity units.

Despite these differences, through our integrated package, BNG and District Licensing requirements can be integrated when subject to the same additionality rules as outlined in Q1. There are clear benefits to both developers and nature conservation (see Q5 for more information below) by allowing the integration of District Licencing and BNG – you can read about these here.

There are clear financial and logistical benefits for a developer in integrating BNG and District Licensing delivery. However, as an outcome driven organisation, we also feel strongly that there are real conservation benefits associated with this integration. An integrated approach takes a holistic view of all the impacts and compensation together, i.e. for the loss of one area of land that generates biodiversity, species and nutrient impacts, it would be disproportionate to require three areas of compensation land, all in practice delivering biodiversity, species and nutrient benefits, with each only being counted as compensation for one impact type. However, it may be appropriate, and proportionate, for each element of compensation to provide benefits beyond that required for a single impact type.

In the first instance BNG will allow features to be included in compensation site delivery that will increase complexity and enhance the overall value of the site. Integration will also facilitate a diversified income stream for the site – adding financial security as a benefit to the landowner, improving landowner uptake and increasing the availability of compensation land. However, the most notable conservation benefit is that integration with BNG opens a funding stream that allows NatureSpace’s NGO partners to set a conservation agenda and secure funding for specialist habitats, more widely than just targeting great crested newts or than would otherwise be available through stand-alone BNG delivery. This would facilitate specialist, high distinctiveness habitats to be delivered that are not often favoured by the BNG metric due to time to condition and difficulty in creation multipliers.

The strategic significance multiplier in the BNG metric is used to take into consideration whether a proposal has an influence (positive or negative) on a local conservation strategy. It has been designed to take regard of Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS); however other published strategies can be considered at the discretion of the relevant local planning authority (LPA) if a LNRS has not yet been published. The District Licence is a recognised conservation strategy for great crested newts, with the spatial element represented in the District Licensing Strategic Opportunity Areas (SOAs). We have had confirmation from DEFRA and Natural England that SOAs would meet the requirements of the Strategic Significance multiplier under the BNG metric. However, their use in this way would be a decision for the LPA, on a case-by-case basis, until they are formally integrated into each LNRS.

Subsequently and at the discretion of the LPA, if there is an impact on a feature that would support great crested newts in a District Licensing SOA, the “High Strategic Significance” multiplier may be applied. Similarly, if there is a compensation action that would benefit great crested newts in a District Licensing SOA, the “High Strategic Significance” multiplier may be applied in a BNG context.

Our integrated BNG package only looks at securing off-site units for your development. We will not be involved in any long-term compliance for any on-site BNG compensation. Any significant on-site enhancements should be secured through a S106 or planning condition with the LPA.

The District Licence fee is not affected by your interest in our integrated BNG package, the process to obtain your great crested newt District Licence is unaffected and follows our standard procedure. When calculating your BNG fee, we can utilise the compensation you have already paid for under the District Licence towards your BNG requirements therefore reducing the number of units the developer needs to pay for. The cost-savings by utilising the already created District Licence compensation are passed on to the developer, reducing your overall BNG quote.

We can offer standalone BNG units, though you will not benefit from the cost-savings with District Licence integration in this case. To make use of integrated BNG you must have joined and paid for your District Licence first.