Polly Montoneri advises on West Oxfordshire’s first BNG Habitat Bank
West Oxfordshire has established its first habitat bank in the district, enhancing the local biodiversity of Pudlicote Farm near Chipping Norton, and facilitating part of the government’s offsite Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) policy. Polly Montoneri, Partner in Rural Land and Business, has been advising on the s106 Agreement with West Oxfordshire to secure the scheme.
The benefits of the BNG policy offer opportunities for landowners to re-focus land use to benefit from income generation through the eventual sale of BNG credits to developers, enabling offsite offsetting of BNG obligations.
The designated area of land on Pudlicote Farm is prone to flooding, so leaning into this unique quality will produce and sustain wetlands and a watermeadow. The landowner Brad Wickens is “passionate about restoring the landscape to a pre-arable state, including a full transition of natural and native habitats from the river, across the floodplain and up valley sides”, says Ben Heaven Taylor from the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment.
This demonstrates the significant progress that the private sector is making in the delivery of BNG and the scaling up of nature recovery projects. As the regulatory landscape of nature recovery comes into sharper focus, schemes like these emphasise the value of the private sector for innovation and rural growth and should constitute a strong call to government to enable private nature finance markets to continue to flourish.
Read the full press release by West Oxfordshire District Council here.
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