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Podcast episode 138: The BNG

Episode 138 of the podcast is available now via this link or from iTunes and Spotify .

Over a year on from it becoming mandatory, what is to be made of BNG?

On the one hand, according to an open letter signed by a 40-strong coalition of housebuilders and environmental groups to mark the first anniversary, “BNG is a true success story. Over the past year, it has unlocked unprecedented investment in local habitats, while also driving green growth.”

On the other hand, only a tenth of respondents to Planning’s consultants survey believed that the system is working well, perhaps because, according to the HBF, nearly 40% of local planning authorities do not have access to in-house ecological expertise.

What is really going on..?

To find out, I invited five experts in in this, ahem, field to talk about what, in their view, is working well, or at least as expected; what is not working well, or at least not as expected; and what, if anything, needs to change.


They talked about small sites, exemptions, metrics and matrices, management companies, phased development, going above the mandatory 10%, Local Nature Recovery Strategies and the proposed Nature Restoration Fund.



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