Issue - meetings

Decision

RESOLVED

1)    To endorse the publication of the Biodiversity Duty report by no later than 25 March 2026 in order to comply with the statutory requirements of the Environment Act 2021.

2)    To agree the subsequent reporting period for the next Biodiversity Duty report to be from 1 January 2026 – 31 December 2028.

3)    To delegate authority to the Assistant Director for Planning to make any further necessary amendments, as required.

Reason for the decision

A legal requirement for public authorities to publish their first Biodiversity Duty Report by no later than 26 March 2026

Cllr A Brown, Portfolio Holder for Planning & Enforcement, introduced this item. He explained that this was the Council’s first Biodiversity Duty report, which related to the statutory duty first introduced by Section 40 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act in 2006, that was further strengthened by the Environment Act 2021 (Sections 102 and 103).

The duty required all public authorities in England to actively conserve and enhance biodiversity when exercising their functions and, legally required them to publish a Biodiversity Duty report to provide the specific information to evidence how the duty had been met.

The Chair invited members to speak:

Cllr V Holliday referred to the previous item and said that it was hard to reconcile the push for growth with the need to protect the Norfolk coast and national landscape. She then asked about replacing mature trees with small saplings and how this counted as biodiversity net gain. She also queried the lack of data on rivers and she asked if everything was being captured.

The Senior Landscape Officer replied that in terms of biodiversity net gain metrics, trees were assigned values on their size and one mature tree could require several small saplings to replace it. In terms of rivers, the information in the report captured what was available in terms of biodiversity gain plans which had been approved via the planning process as of 12^th February 2024 to 31^st December 2025. There had been very few applications coming through that had affected rivers during this period.

Cllr L Withington said that educating communities about biodiversity net gain was key and there was very little in the report relating to this. She suggested that this could be highlighted to developers so that they could consider it more.

Cllr L Shires said that people weren’t aware that the policy was there. She spoke about the Miyawaki forest in North Walsham which had grown incredibly well in the last four years. There could be more educational work done to promote such projects to residents and highlight the benefits. She suggested that a physical format such as an information board could be helpful in such locations.

The Chair agreed and said that local communities had engaged extremely well with the 110k trees project. Cllr A Brown agreed.

The Chair said that it was important to ensure developers achieved mitigation within the district, reflecting the local ecological needs. He thanked officers for all their work on the report.

It was proposed by Cllr A Brown, seconded by Cllr A Varley and

RESOLVED

1)    To endorse the publication of the Biodiversity Duty report by no later than 25 March 2026 in order to comply with the statutory requirements of the Environment Act 2021.

2)    To agree the subsequent reporting period for the next Biodiversity Duty report to be from 1 January 2026 – 31 December 2028.

3)    To delegate authority to the Assistant Director for Planning to make any further necessary amendments, as required.

Reason for the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28