Sandwell Local Plan Main Modifications Consultation

Comment

Representation ID: 1792

Received: 30/03/2026

Respondent: Home Builders Federation

Policy SNE1 – Nature Conservation

HBF remains concerned that the Council has misunderstood how mandatory national Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) works in practice and is seeking to introduce additional local policy requirements which will in fact undermine how the national BNG policy is intended to be implemented. Elsewhere in the Plan the Council has accepted the national policy requirement is 10% but in criterion 5 of this policy, the Council is still seeking to require 15% in some circumstances. This is not appropriate especially as not all development is required to deliver BNG. Although HBF welcome the Councils recognition of the role that the LNRS can play in helping to form the evidence base for this Local Plan, it should be used to inform considerations of the planning balance at the policy level, not become as any kind of arbitrary tool. This is simply not appropriate as the definition and delineation of the area of strategic significance be subjected to same level of consultation or evidence scrutiny as other policy requirements in the Plan. This additional wording should be removed.

We also note that the current NPPF (Dec 2025) consultation indicates that the only time where it may be appropriate to seek more than 10% BNG through local policy relates to allocations, and even then only where this is clearly evidenced and justified. The policy needs revising and updating to ensure it reflects current policy and does not enable BNG to become a barrier to new development, when it is intended to deliver a win-win both helping to support nature recovery and addressing the housing crisis.

Comment

Representation ID: 1793

Received: 30/03/2026

Respondent: Home Builders Federation

Policy SNE2 – Protection and Enhancement of Wildlife Habitats

The proposed changes to the wording of this policy do not address our concerns that the Council has fundamentally misunderstood how BNG policy is intended to work in practice. The proposed Modifications to this policy do not comply with national policy or practice in this area and as such need to be revised.

Criterion one seems to indicate that all development should deliver BNG, with the exemptions to this relegated to a footnote. This text should be included within the policy. We note that in general the use of footnotes throughout the policies in this Plan is unhelpful ineffective and unsound. Reference is also made to the statutory metric, when in fact at the moment there are two, the national 4.0 metric and the small sites metric.

Criterion two uses the wrong terminology still wrongly seeks to augment the BNG spatial hierarchy by introducing an additional step of requiring off-site credits to be located close to the site. This is not a requirement of national policy and does not reflect the availability of credits. It is for example perfectly acceptable under national guidance to purchase, for example off-site river units, or open mosaic habitat units, where they are available, especially because the market for off-site units is still developing and not all kinds of habitat units may be available within Sandwell. The metric calculations already account for this within them.

Criterion three is incorrect. The purchase of national credits can be used when there are no off-site units available. They have been set at a deliberately high price to discourage their use. The Plan needs to use the correct terminology, this is not compensation- it is delivering 10% BNG through statutory credits.

HBF was involved in a significant amount of work, being led by the Future Homes Hub, on BNG preparedness, including feeding into the BNG Planning Practice Guidance and the DEFRA BNG Guidance, and continue to be involved in this work through sitting on the FHH BNG Implementation Board. This group seeks to ensure that BNG can deliver the win for nature and the win for housing as intended, by identifying challenges in the implementation of this policy and trying to find solution to them. HBF recognises the role that development can play in helping to support nature recovery. However, it is also important BNG delivers the win-win intended and does not become a barrier to housing delivery.

Experience has found that delivering the 10% BNG requirements can be very challenging in some cases, particularly on brownfield sites where open mosaic habitat is present, and on some of the smallest sites where on-site BNG provision requires a disproportionate amount of the developable area to be used for BNG. As 10% BNG is mandatory, where viability challenges are encountered then it is usually affordable housing that it reduced to accommodate this.

The Government (via DEFRA) recently undertook a consultation on potential revisions to the national BNG requirement and is now intending that sites under 0.2 Ha are exempt from BNG. Further work on other possible improvements to the working of the policy in practice are ongoing and it will be important that the Plan’s policy on this issue is kept under review up to adoption to ensure it reflects the Environment Act 2021 and all relevant Government Guidance in this area.

The recent NPPF (Dec 2025) consultation indicates that the only time where it may be appropriate to seek more than 10% BNG through local policy relates to allocations, and even then only where this is clearly evidenced and justified. BNG implementation is an area of work being led by DEFRA and is required under the Environment Act. As such changes to how BNG is operationalised will need to be fully considered in the Local Plan.

In order for the Sandwell Plan to be sound it must comply with the Environment Act and DEFRA Guidance. This is separate from and in addition to MHCLG advice and the NPPF. Care is therefore needed to ensure that any policy on Biodiversity Net Gain policy complies with the latest policy and guidance on adoption, and it is noted that some of this DEFRA guidance and legislation is currently under review. In Feb 2025 the Government also published additional Guidance on how Local Nature Recovery Strategies should be integrated with/feed into Local Plan Making. This Plan should fully reflect this and any new guidance.

It should also be noted that the PPG is clear that there is no need for individual Local Plans to repeat national BNG guidance, and that additional advice on phased development has been provided in the BNG PPG For large and complex sites where the development is phased, the guidance is clear that the 10% must be delivered at the end of the development, and this may not result in 10% BNG on each phase.

HBF also note the significant potential for confusion around environmental hierarchy, and suggest particular care is needed to avoid any confusion between the well-established mitigation hierarchy and the new BNG hierarchy. There is need for the policy wording and/or supporting text to be clearer about the differentiation between the mitigation hierarchy (which seeks to avoid harm in the first place, then mitigate and only then compensate it in relation to protected habitats) and the BNG hierarchy (which prioritises on-site BNG delivery, then off-site units and finally allows for the purchase of statutory credits). There seems to be significant potential for confusion between the two difference hierarchies. HBF therefore suggest that the Plan should do all it can to explain how the two hierarchies work in different ways and that they seek to achieve different aims. We would suggest the use of the term “BNG spatial hierarchy” may help with this issue.

HBF therefore objects to the Councils’ continued insistence that off-site BNG should be provided within the Borough. This is not how BNG policy is intended to work, and the statutory metric already penalises off-site units which are located further away from the site.

It is therefore also not appropriate for this Plan to seek to require, or even simply promote, developers to use the “Habitat Banks” identified by the Council. Indeed such an approach would be counter to the requirements of BNG which require the BNG units to be established before they can be attributed in a BNG Plan, and recorded on the Natural England BNG Register. The does not appear to be the stage the “BNG Habitat have reached- in deed they seem to be just a line on a map as and as such could not be considered to be BNG off-site units available for purchase. The identification of these sites within the Plan appears to seek to give them some kind of planning policy status which is neither appropriate, nor accurate. Unless the Council has already legal established a Habitat Bank with off-site units available for sale, no reference should be made to this within the Plan. Even then giving preference to Council, rather than other provider units, seems inappropriate. Crietrion 6 and the Table must be deleted.

HBF also note that the Government (via DEFRA) recently undertook a consultation on potential revisions to the national BNG requirement and is now proposing sites under 0.2 Ha are exempt from BNG. Further work on other possible improvements to the working of the policy in practice are ongoing and it will be important that the Plan’s policy on this issue is kept under review. As such significant changes are needed to this policy to ensure it is up to date and meets the tests of soundness.