2 hours agoShareSaveHelen Briggs,Environment correspondentandJonah Fisher,Climate correspondentShareSaveBerks, Bucks and Oxfordshire Wildlife TrustBiodiversity Net Gain, which requires developments in England to increase biodiversity by 10%, has been in place for less than two years.However, critics say the policy can increase costs and cause delays in the planning process, particularly for smaller developers, making some projects unviable.The policy has made building “harder, more expensive and more complicated”, said Rico Wojtulewicz of the building trade body, the National Federation of Builders.He told the BBC: “Biodiversity net gain is not working – it’s not working for construction because it is delaying projects, it’s making things more expensive… and it’s not really helping nature in the way it should.”The government announced a consultation in May. Options included exempting sites of up to 10,000 sq m (roughly one or two football fields).Emma Toovey is chief nature officer at Environment Bank, a company that creates habitat banks which developers can use to pay for nature restoration if this cannot be done on site.She said adding more exemptions means “less nature within developments and less money to go into nature restoration and nature recovery within our wider landscapes”.The government has also said it will consult on expanding exemptions on brownfield sites of up to 25,000 sq m in size and will introduce measures to make it easier, quicker, and cheaper for medium-sized developments to deliver off-site nature improvements. …
