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RESOLVED
 
KEY DECISION
 
That the Executive:
 

a)        
Delegated authority to the Executive Director of
Place and Economy, in consultation with the Executive Member for
Growth and Regeneration, to agree the details of any habitat bank
proposal to be secured by legal agreement;
 

b)        
Adopted the Information Requirements and Evaluation
of Habitat Bank Proposals in Appendix A and the Key
Stakeholder Notification in Appendix B;
 

c)         
Approved the principle of a price on application fee
for processing habitat bank proposals and delegates authority to
the Executive Director of Place and Economy, in consultation with
the Executive Member for Growth and Regeneration to approve a
charging schedule for such fees; and
 

d)        
Approved the monitoring fee detailed in Appendix
C for monitoring of Biodiversity Net Gain subject to ongoing
review and increase.
 
 
Reasons for Recommendations:
 

a)     
To provide a means to assess, facilitate and manage
the provision of habitat banks within North Northamptonshire,
thereby ensuring that:

·      
Developers with the benefit of a planning permission
but who are unable to provide BNG within their development site
have an alternative option for its provision through the purchase
of biodiversity units within North Northamptonshire

·      
the Council has influence over delivery, maintenance
and monitoring of BNG within its administrative area over the
30-year period. 

·      
investment and delivery of biodiversity net gain is
made locally rather than outside North
Northamptonshire. 

b)     
To ensure that the Council’s costs of
facilitating habitat banks are recovered.

c)     
To ensure that the monitoring fees cover the
Council’s costs of monitoring biodiversity net gain on both
habitat banks and on sites in connection with a planning
permission; and once adopted to enable the fees to be reviewed so
that they remain reflective of the costs to the
Council. 

 
Alternative Options Considered:

a)     
To do nothing, but this would leave a risk of
investment in habitat banks being directed outside of North
Northamptonshire. In addition, the Council’s inclusion as a
signatory to S106 Agreements provides the Council with an extra
level of input into how habitat banks are managed, and the
monitoring regimes. Doing nothing could also stall delivery of
development as developers struggle to find alternative provision
elsewhere in the country with a financial penalty for doing so,
potentially impacting viability for other infrastructure
provisions. Doing nothing would also mean that the Council could
not charge a fee and therefore recover its costs for the monitoring
of BNG in connection with planning permissions and this would
therefore be a financial burden for the Council.
 

b)     
In respect of habitat banks the Council could apply
to Defra to become a ‘responsible body’, for the
purpose of entering into conservation covenants with habitat bank
providers instead of or in addition to S106 Agreements. Being able
to offer both conservation covenants and S106 Agreements would give
habitat bank providers a second legal agreement option, however
conservation covenants are a new and untested legal mechanism in
relation to BNG, and would likely require additional legal input
and resources.