Biodiversity Duty - First Considerations Report

1: Background

The Environment Act 2021 introduced a strengthened duty in relation to the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity. In complying with this duty, public authorities must:

• Consider what can be done to conserve and enhance biodiversity
• Agree policies and specific objectives based on these considerations
• Act to deliver policies and achieve those objectives

An overriding aim is that the Council’s actions should contribute at a local level to national objectives as set out in the Government “Environmental Improvement Plan” published in January 2023. As part of this Plan, the Government has committed to:

• Halt the decline of species abundance (by 2030)
• Protect 30% of UK land (by 2030)
• Increase species abundance by at least 10% from 2030 (by 2042)
• Restore or create at least 500,000 hectares of wildlife rich habitats (2042)
• Reduce the risk of species extinction
• Restore 75% of our 1 million hectares of terrestrial and freshwater protected sites to favourable condition

Clearly, the work that Bradford Council does across all its services, impacts upon the natural environment to varying degrees and presents opportunities to contribute to these national aims.

As a first step in this process, authorities are required to complete a “first considerations report” which sets out the Council policy and operational activity which may need to be reviewed or amended in order to comply with the duty and support the national objectives.

2: Policy

Planning and Local Plan policies

One of the Council’s key policy areas which has potential to influence our response to the biodiversity duty is within the Planning and Development Control services.

Consideration will be given to:

1. Review of all the policies within the Local Plan with an ambition to include reference to biodiversity (where possible) in other topic areas – such as green infrastructure, climate change, health, transport (including active travel), housing, and employment – thereby creating a biodiversity thread throughout the plan.
2. Implementation of the biodiversity net-gain element of development management whereby the requirement for at least a 10% net-gain in biodiversity value is an integral mandatory (from January 2024) element of planning approvals
3. Establishment of a Council-run habitat bank including Council sites – where habitats can be improved or created as offsets from development sites where this cannot be achieved. This would provide a long-term income source for the management of such sites and contribute to the achievement of net-gain and biodiversity enhancement in general
4. Effective implementation of existing Local Plan policies relating to biodiversity such as protection of the South Pennine Moors within the District and the zonal approach to mitigating the impacts of development on the S Pennine Moors Special Protection Area / Special Area of Conservation
5. Bradford Council declared a climate emergency in January 2019, and has undertaken projects and schemes including planting one tree for every child (55,000 total) and allocating funds for moorland restoration (work commencing in 2024) . Further expansion and enhancement of Green Infrastructure / habitat networks would continue improving climate change resilience in the district with benefits including urban cooling, flood resilience, and carbon storage. It would also have co-benefits for maintaining and enhancing habitat networks, supporting projects such as the South Pennines Nature Recovery Project (with Natural England) which seeks to create green corridors, restore habitats, and promote sustainable access to the South Pennines for health benefits as part of the City of Culture 2025.
6. Deliver other key corporate objectives across multiple services within the council including: the Parks and Greenspaces Strategy (being prepared by LUC), Nature Recovery projects (for example, the South Pennines) and city centre regeneration projects (for example, City Village) which aim to increase access to biodiversity and Green Infrastructure.
7. Consider review of designated sites across the District and work towards the designation of a National Nature Reserve (with Natural England) within the District. This would also provide the opportunity to designate further Local Wildlife Sites and Local Nature Reserves on sites which are not part of the NNR but make up the adjacent “affiliated land”. IN this way we can work towards reflecting the national “30 by 30” objective in the Bradford District (that is, 30% of the area designated by 2030)

Other policy and operational areas

It is probably fair to say that almost all the Council’s operations and services have an impact, good or bad, on biodiversity. The scale of such impacts will vary across the corporate landscape.

In assessing our first considerations, the more obvious operational areas can be identified:

• Capital projects: significant funding is being invested in the Bradford District on regeneration and transport schemes. We will consider how well biodiversity is embedded in such schemes and how opportunities for enhancement as part of those schemes can be maximised (see 6 above).
• Waste Management: end use of tip sites as part of habitat bank (for example, Sugden End, Manywells) plus other waste related activity
• Land and property: particularly in relation to allotments, agricultural holdings, parks, recreation grounds, sports facilities, amenity open space, grounds of public buildings – how can they contribute to enhancing biodiversity or the emerging habitat bank. How best to assess their current and potential biodiversity value.
• Parks and Street Cleansing : review use of herbicide
• Consider embedding biodiversity into Council Committee Reports by inserting an “Impacts on Biodiversity” section in all standard report templates – so that any items being presented to Committee must consider how biodiversity may be impacted by the proposal.
• Report to Regeneration and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee in March 2024 with an update on implementation of key Environment Act duties (Biodiversity Net-Gain, Protected Species, Local Nature Recovery Strategy) plus an overview of Council action in relation to the declaration of a biodiversity emergency and making our green spaces more wildlife-friendly.