Biodiversity Net Gain has huge potential to restore nature on a ‘landscape scale’ in Oxfordshire. Because of the unique way the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) operates, we can help ensure that Biodiversity Net Gain payments are used strategically and to greatest effect.

TOE is an independent charity and has strong relationships with local planning authorities, and biodiversity community across the county. TOE facilitates and support landowners to support larger-scale, more sustainable projects, but can also help ensure that the projects can be joined up to create ‘wildlife corridors’, promoting connectivity between areas of high value for wildlife.

We work closely with all our partners to ensure that the way we place Biodiversity Net Gain projects has maximum benefit in support of the emerging county-wide nature recovery strategies. As a charity, any surplus funds are put back into our Local Environment Fund to further nature restoration across the county.

What is Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)?

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) offers an opportunity, not merely to protect our region’s depleted biodiversity, but to restore some of what has been lost.

The principle of biodiversity net gain is a simple one: to achieve a greater diversity of wildlife after a development has taken place than before it took place. Biodiversity net gain is a key plank in the UK Government’s ‘25 year environment plan’ which pledges that this generation will be the first to leave the environment in a better state than it found it.

The Environment Act requires the majority of planning consent in England to demonstrate a 10% gain in biodiversity (compared to pre-development), using a scoring system developed by Natural England. In Oxfordshire, many local authorities were already applying a biodiversity gain policy to new developments.

How does Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) work?

Under the national biodiversity net gain policy, many developments, as part of their planning consent, will need to demonstrate a ‘net gain’ over a specified period (30 years).

Biodiversity net gain can often be delivered within a development site (‘on-site’’). Where this is not possible, an offset or compensation charge may be applied per ‘biodiversity unit’ lost which is then used to create the ‘net gain’ elsewhere (‘off-site’).

At TOE, we work with landowners across the region to create and supply off-site BNG units that make a real difference to Oxfordshire’s nature. As leading experts in BNG, TOE oversee implementation, monitoring and management of your biodiversity offset for the full 30 years - we’re here for the long run, not just for the sale. As a not-for-profit entity, surplus funds generated through trading BNG units become a ‘nature dividend’ and are invested back into nature and local communities via our grant making programme.

For planning applications originating before February 2024, developers can make Biodiversity Net Gain payments direct to TOE as a way to meet their planning commitments. For planning applications made after February 2024, TOE have registered Habitat Banks from which units can be purchased under the national BNG framework.

Our policy on accepting offsets

There are legitimate concerns that offsetting could in some circumstances be used to mask widespread damage to irreplaceable, priority or protected habitats.

TOE will ensure our work does not enable the destruction of Oxfordshire’s important remaining habitats. We will not accept biodiversity offsets on sites where the loss to habitat is unacceptable, such as where irreplaceable habitat or other important wildlife sites are being lost or compromised.

Working closely with local authorities, developers and landowners, Biodiversity Net Gain payments can be used to ensure that development in Oxfordshire does not come at the expense of nature, but helps to restore what has been lost for future generations