CIL and Biodiversity - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Without details of exactly what projects you have in mind, I'm struggling to think what "biodiversity projects" would constitute "infrastructure" for the purposes of s.216 of the Planning Act 2008.

Tony - to offset impacts on wildlife from development by the creation of new biodiversity features such as ponds/hedgerows on private land.

If the need is to offset the impact of a specific development that is surely mitigation and therefore a target for S106, doubly so if they also serve as structural landscaping or as part of a drainage system. If I was a developer and you had included this in the infrastructure list for CIL purposes I would resist any S106 requirement because it would be double counting.

Heike, Michael is right. If you are talking about site specific mitigation then it should be secured via s.106.

The S106 pooling problem would suggest that CIL is a better mechanism for any strategic project, or in an urban area where you might want to deliver improvements to existing green infrastructure supported by contributions from a large nuumber of developments and where mitigation is often not possible on site. Cil is for infrastructure required to support the development of the area - what this means is not defined - so there is nothing preventing you using it to provide a country park for example as this would certainly help the social, possible the economic and definitely the environmental development of the area. Having a GI stratgey would seem to be an essential part of the evidence to support the need for a CIL and the 123 list.

Thank you very much for your comments, this is very helpful.