The payback from securing natural capital
This year has been designated the Year of Green Action.
There is a growing awareness of the importance of natural capital across a range of rural professional and planning services.
At its most obvious, the concept of ‘public money for public goods’ is shaping future rural support payments. The activities which will be funded in future are set out in the Agriculture Bill now before Parliament, and Defra is already working on trial schemes which will help to shape the new regime.
Less obvious however is the influence that the concept of natural capital is starting to have on development planning.
The National Planning Policy Framework was updated in 2018.The new framework, which sets out national planning policy, calls for development which enhances the natural environment by recognising the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside and the wider benefits from natural capital and ecosystem services.
The framework’s demand for net gains for biodiversity from development are echoed in the latest annual report from the Natural Capital Committee whose job is to advise government at the highest level on the vital role that natural capital plays in national life.
Berrys’ planning team in Shropshire recently encountered these principles in practice on an appeal site for 36 dwellings on the edge of Shrewsbury.
The planning inspector devoted considerable attention at the public inquiry to the potential value of the site for natural capital and public amenity. Overturning the local authority’s refusal and granting planning consent, his report concluded that the new development would enhance the ecology of the site by improving the habitat there for newts, birds and bats.
He also noted that the proposals would provide public access to an area which includes a pond and where currently no public access is available at all. The inspector felt that the broader views to the countryside would also be improved by the development.
Our head of planning and development Stuart Thomas pointed out that a key to success with this appeal was the clear-minded way in which the client and the project team had designed natural capital thinking into the development’s layout and design from the start.
Far from being a threat to development, this approach should be an aid to getting the very best development proposals and may well become vital to successful planning proposals in the future.
For the wider countryside, these principles will soon apply to all aspects of rural professional property and land management advice.
Matthew Anwyl is based at the Shrewsbury office of Berrys
