SCC - MS - Surrey Biodiversity Net Gain Habitat Banking Study

The Environment Act (2021) includes the requirement for most developments requiring planning consent in England to achieve a minimum 10% Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). Furthermore, Surrey County Council (SCC) will be the 'responsible authority' for production of a Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) for Surrey, which is another mandatory requirement from the Environment Act. The Council also has new biodiversity reporting requirements as well as strengthened legal duty to conserve and enhance biodiversity. As a result, the Council have ambitious plans for nature recovery in Surrey. In relation to BNG, SCC has four distinct roles:

• County Planning Authority (CPA): regulator of BNG in relation to Minerals and Waste development and for SCC's own development.

• Developer: delivering BNG following mitigation hierarchy in projects such as new builds and extension of schools i.e., avoid losses, deliver gains on-site as far as possible, compensate with off-site gains if required.

• Landowner: potential provider of biodiversity units (to be used as BNG offsets for third parties).

• Responsible authority for production of the LNRS.

In addition, boroughs and districts in Surrey are Local Planning Authorities for the vast majority of planning applications and are similarly both landowners and scheme promoters /developers.

The County Council and borough and district councils across Surrey, wish to:

i. Understand the potential supply of Biodiversity units on public sector owned land, with the view to establishing a portfolio of Biodiversity gain sites (BNG habitat banks) and

ii. Identify locations and measures that will deliver multiple environmental benefits, in particular restoring/enhancing habitats in combination with increasing carbon storage and/or in combination with natural flood management.

SCC wishes to appoint a consultant to undertake an assessment of the baseline biodiversity units, at a range of public sector owned sites, and an appraisal of potential biodiversity unit gains (by enhancing, restoring or creating habitats).

The opportunity for BNG uplift should take into account the current / future land use of the site and be realistic to achieve. The uplifts should also be based on ecological best practice and take account of existing local biodiversity policies, principally including Surrey Nature Partnership's Biodiversity Opportunity Area (BOA) Policy statements (where relevant) and the National Character Area profiles for sites outside of BOA boundaries.

Surrey County Council wishes to appoint a consultant to undertake an assessment of the baseline biodiversity units, at a range of public sector owned sites, and an appraisal of potential biodiversity unit gains (by enhancing, restoring or creating habitats). The opportunity for BNG uplift should take into account the current / future land use of the site and be realistic to achieve. The uplifts should also be based on ecological best practice and take account of existing local biodiversity policies, principally including Surrey Nature Partnership’s Biodiversity Opportunity Area (BOA) Policy statements (where relevant) and the National Character Area profiles for sites outside of BOA boundaries. In addition, the County Council places significant importance on landscape-appropriate local carbon sequestration, tree planting and natural flood management (NFM) opportunities. In particular, the county council has set a target to plant 1 million trees by 2030 and as Lead Local Flood Authority, has identified priority areas for catchment approaches to managing flood risk.

The County Council has recently completed a desk top exercise to provide a ‘best guess’ of habitat type across Surrey (OS master map feature). This data set will be available to the successful consultant, as a potential starting point for baseline surveys. In addition, previous ecology survey reports (such as Phase 1 habitat surveys, management plans) will also be made available for the site (where existing ecological data exists).

An initial shortlist of sites to be surveyed is provided in Appendix 1 of the specification. This list is not exhaustive, considering the potential contract extension period, of up to a further 2 years. Surrey County Council and the districts and boroughs, require that as many sites are surveyed in 2023 as possible. However, it is acknowledged that there is an optimum survey window and as such, site surveys will roll over into the 2024 survey season. As such, for 2023, an equal split of sites between the various landowners will be required to be surveyed. A pre-commencement meeting will be held with the successful consultant to discuss the prioritisation of sites to be surveyed in 2023.

Upon contract award, a project start up meeting will be held with successful consultant and the relevant officers. This meeting will discuss the prioritisation of sites to be surveyed in 2023. It is anticipated that this would be held via Microsoft teams. In addition to the project start up meeting, a further three meetings as well as a project close out meeting will be held (5 meetings in total).