FOI request (FOIR-647554707)

Biodiversity Net Gain Compliance in Planning Applications

Requested Mon 16 September 2024
Responded Mon 11 November 2024

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding planning applications and biodiversity net gain (BNG) compliance.

Specifically, I am requesting the following information, with data broken down by calendar month since 12 February 2024:

1. The total number of planning applications received by your authority that were subject to the mandatory statutory biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirements. For the avoidance of doubt, please include both applications received that claimed BNG applied to their development and applications that claimed BNG did not apply on their site (that is, they claimed an exemption).

2. The total number of planning applications that:

a. Claimed to be exempt from BNG.

b. Of this number, please provide the number that:

i. Claimed they were exempt from the BNG requirements under the householder exemption.

ii. Claimed they were exempt from the BNG requirements under the de minimis exemption (developments impacting less than 25 square metres of habitat or 5 metres of linear habitat).

iii. Claimed they were exempt from the BNG requirements under the self-build and custom-build exemptions.

iv. Claimed they were exempt from the BNG requirements under different criteria.

3. For the answer to 2b(ii), 2b(iii) and 2b(iv) please set out:

a. How many of these claims of exemption were accepted by the validation team?

b. Of this number, how many applications provided a complete statutory biodiversity metric sheet or small site metric sheet to demonstrate that they were genuinely entitled to an exemption?

Given this information is not publicly available, please provide it in an accessible format. If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16 obligations of the Act, as to how I can refine my request.

Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

The requested information can be found publicly on our website:

https://www.hastings.gov.uk/planning/