National Planning Policy Framework and BCT's new guidelines

Hi all,

National Planning Policy Framework:

On the 27th of March 2012 the Government released the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This document has streamlined the planning policies that were implemented by the local authorities in a planning context.

Planning Policy Statement 9 (Biodiversity) is no longer valid, however circular 06/05 is to be used in conjunction with NPPF.

There were concerns from the nature conservation movement when the draft of the NPPF was published, the focus was on sustainable development, however there was no definition of what this was!!

In the NPPF which is now in force this has been revised somewhat compared with the draft, to include a definition of sustainable development.

So why was there so much concern?

Put simply the EU habitats directive and bird directive had been mostly ignored. After a lot of lobbing from the major nature organisations such as BCT, the Wildlife Trusts, RSPB and National Trust amendments were made.

Most importantly were EU protected species are concerned there is no presumption in favour of sustainable development. As in the previous planning polices, full and up to date information concerning the species should be available.

What this means in practise we are yet to find out, but the interpretation should be that full surveys for protected species should have been undertaken before planning is granted.

New BCT Survey Guidelines:

At roughly the same time the new 2nd edition of the BCT survey guidelines have been released. These are now much more focused on the commercial ecology industry.

Clarification of some of the minor issues from the previous 1st edition have been made clearer e.g. the consultant is to use expert judgement and the guidelines to make decisions.

Another issue was the de-facto two dusk and one dawn survey, the guidance now says that if a dusk/dawn is undertaken in the same 24hr period that is classed as one survey.

I hazard a guess that this will cause further issues as no definition of a 24hr period is given, common sense would say that this should be a 24hr rotation of the clock, however I can see that certain people will interpret this differently.

Overall the guidance should clear up minor issues from the 1st edition and make the consultants job easier.

Martin