A controversial policy on biodiversity offsetting proposed by the Government hangs in the balance following six pilot schemes around England. Biodiversity offsetting aimed to correct the damage that a development may have on biodiversity by offsetting the damage elsewhere and would, if approved, be incorporated into the planning system.
The Government claimed that the biodiversity value of a site would take 20 minutes to calculate. Following this calculation, biodiversity would be valued in biodiversity units - the idea being that if one biodiversity unit is lost as a result of a development then the developer must contribute one biodiversity unit elsewhere.
Six two-year pilot schemes were launched in 2012 in England. In June 2013, Collingwood Environmental Planning, which was asked to assess the pilot schemes, published an interim report which said, "The lack of suitable biodiversity offsetting projects coming forward to date is noted and should be considered as a significant finding in itself." It added, "It does appear developers are cautious about what they see as an additional process with limited obvious benefits."
Questions about the structure of biodiversity offsetting were raised, some asking how biodiversity can be valued in just 20 minutes, whilst others wondered how established habitats can simply be moved or replaced through offsetting. The Commons' Environmental Audit Committee also launched an attack on the vision of offsetting that the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) had adopted through its green paper consultation on biodiversity offsetting.
The Committee believed that biodiversity offsetting could be done much better than the Government had set out. Now that the pilots have ended, Defra have agreed to follow the Committee's recommendations and wait for the assessment of the pilot schemes before any policy decisions are made.
It would therefore appear that doubts are being raised about the potential effectiveness of the biodiversity offsetting policy. It is predicted that a further report by the Commons' Environmental Audit Committee in the summer will indicate whether or not biodiversity offsetting will be incorporated into the planning system.
