Biodiversity Net Gain: reality bites reproduced from Save Lea Marshes
Biodiversity Net Gain at the Ice Centre? Posted on 31 May 2021 by Save Lea Marshes Linked post: waterworks-meadow Last autumn the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority submitted a planning application to the London Borough of Waltham Forest to double the size of the Ice Centre on the Lea Bridge Road. This site is Metropolitan Open Land (MOL), so the Authority needed to have very compelling arguments amounting to ‘Very Special Circumstances’ to support the application. Foremost among these arguments was the claim that the development would produce a large “biodiversity net gain” (BNG). Paragraph 170 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF, 2019) states that Planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by … providing net gains for biodiversity. This is interpreted to me...