The National Federation of Builders says that SME developers are bracing themselves for huge extra costs when new rules to increase biodiversity come into play in November.
The change will require a housing or commercial project to increase biodiversity by 10% from November onwards. The NFB had hoped that the government would raise the definition of a small site from nine to 39 new homes, making greater use of a digitised habitat metric.
NFB housing and planning policy head, Rico Wojtulewicz said: “We believe the government has missed a trick by not taking up our offer to extend the small sites metric to medium-sized sites of fewer than 40 homes and trialling it during the transition period, alongside the targeting of local species.”
The NFB has argued that the development of up to 40 homes would have been large enough to see if a particular biodiversity initiative such as installing bat boxes worked.
Wojtulewicz continued: “We would like to have made it world-leading. The government doesn’t seem to understand that we are part of the solution.”
Raising the cap for small sites to 39 homes would have allowed a significant number of SMEs to adopt the digitised habitat metric rather than employing an ecologist to assess biodiversity net gain.
The expenses associated with adopting the new rules are significant, with 40-home development potentially resulting in extra costs in the region of £200,000.
Property finance intermediaries, Hank Zarihs Associates, said the increases were ‘massive’ and believe that development finance lenders will be concerned this would deter SMEs from building in rural areas.
However, many in the construction industry are pleased the government has limited net gain to 10% and not given local authorities the option to increase the percentage.
Site design will also be considered, which means gardens and other features such as bat boxes and bee bricks could potentially be counted in the habitat metric, another positive for housebuilders.
Environment secretary, Therese Coffey, said the government would support and work with developers and planning authorities over the new rules, as well as provide an additional £16million in funding for housebuilders.
Coffey said: “We want to help them ensure the developments of the future enhance biodiversity by creating thriving places for plants and wildlife, as outlined under our pioneering environmental improvement plan.”
When the rules go live in November, developers must assess the type of habitat affected and its condition before submitting plans to the local council.
They will also need to outline how they will deliver the 10% benefit using ‘biodiversity metric trading’ rules. This requires that any habitat affected within the boundary is replaced on a ‘like for like’ or ‘like for better’ principle.
If that is unattainable, developers can instead pay for improvements on other sites by purchasing ‘units’ via a private, off-site market. A government-run statutory credit scheme is being set up which developers can use as a last resort.
Small sites have a longer transition period until April 2024, and exemptions have been made for developments such as self-build homes.
