Catherine Spitzer is the managing director of Environment Bank and Archie Struthers is CEO von Nattergal
BNG must be retained to ensure
Great Britain has a lack of affordable houses and a biological diversity crisis. We need a government that is serious to address both challenges-we urgently needed apartments for the nation and have a plan to reverse the decline in nature.
A flowering natural environment offers far -reaching economic advantages. Healthy ecosystems help to prevent floods, threaten houses and financial security, support pollination and fertile soils that are essential for food production, and that provide for public health of crucial temperatures for clean air and cooler temperatures.
Some argue that environmental obligations include unnecessary burdens. Others claim that building more houses will lead to the widespread destruction of nature. We have seen some of these arguments in recent debates about the government's planning and infrastructure law.
However, both arguments are wrong. House construction and natural restoration are not diametrically opposite, but two sides of the same coin that are just as important for the development of our future. We need guidelines that can deliver both and the net profit of the biological diversity is the answer.
Trust and stability
BNG requires developers to improve biological diversity by at least 10 percent by improvements on site, outside the location or a combination of the two.
Since its implementation in 2024, this guideline has already made it possible to restore the habitats of an estimated 21,000 hectares, a clear victory for nature. It has also built up an impressive natural market that, if this is approved, will continue to grow and deliver the public wallet free of charge to the natural restoration.
The support for BNG is widespread within industry.
It offers a stable political environment that offers the company the clarity, equality and uniformity that you need to make decisions quickly. This clear political framework for developers contributes to faster house construction projects, development and completions and supports the government's 2024 promise to build 1.5 million houses in five years.
BNG works as intended and enables householders to bring Britain back on the building as it delivers the natural restoration on a scale.
What is needed is trust and stability to ensure that this market continues to thrive. For this reason, we require caution to change this guideline so soon after its implementation.
Countless risks
The recent government proposal to remove the BNG requirements for smaller housing developers exists for countless risks for developers, for nature and for the government.
Proposals for removing BNG requirements for developments of less than nine houses would be exempted 80 percent of the planning applications, the basics of this promising market are messed up, make it unprofitable for operators and reduce the trust of the investors.
This upheaval in the political landscape will ultimately slow down the development of apartments and infrastructures, since companies hurry to understand new rules and to have to adapt.
Removing BNG requirements for small developers would also have poor consequences for the environment, so that 215,000 hectares can be developed without replacing the lost nature, and damaging the communities that benefit from the presence of nature and the services provided by them.
We hope that government consultations are used to strengthen the BNG and to further strengthen the developers and the natural market to support the government in securing these profits for nature and development. We see the need that certain requirements have to be simplified, but wholesale changes and ceiling exceptions in this phase are not the answer.
BNG must be maintained. This ensures that investors continue to consider the market to be stable and invested and guarantee ongoing, privately financed natural market offers.
By maintaining a stable political environment, it is also ensured that developers can continue to work in a familiar, functional system in order to accelerate the decision -making processes and to move closer to the promised 1.5 million houses.
We know that Labor is serious to achieve both goals, and as representatives of the industry, we hope closely with the government in order to use the full power of the already successful natural market to do this.