Respondent 11 (Local Planning Authority)
Interviewer(s): Me
Interviewee(s): Respondent

Me: As you know from our email exchanges the project seeks to elicit stakeholder perspectives to biodiversity offsetting in the UK. I have chosen to study biodiversity offsetting because it is an instrument in quite rapid policy development but early theoretical development. I'm particularly interested in your insight because you have worked at the interface of practice and policy.

Respondent: Sure, yep.

Me: Having worked on one of the pilot offsetting schemes you will be able to give a good insight into the design and implementation aspects.

Respondent: Hopefully so, yes.

Me: So, to start, perhaps the most divisive debate around offsetting is its implications for development red tape. So, if I can begin by asking you - do you think biodiversity offsets are likely to lead to tighter or less stringent regulations around infrastructure projects?

Respondent: That's a good question, my personal feeling is that actually the mainstreaming of offsetting actually has the potential simplify the development process by making decision making more transparent. From my own perspective, obviously biodiversity offsetting is a way of delivering compensation for impacts which can't be avoided or mitigated against. Part of my role is to comment on planning applications and that very often leads to debate with developers and their ecologists about whether mitigation or compensation is being provided on their sites. At the moment, that is fairly subjective, depending on whether you work for the developer or not and how that affects your view on whether you think appropriate or sufficient mitigation or compensation is being provided. And at the moment it is a fairly subjective thing - my view is that offsetting or more specifically the use of a metric where losses and gains can actually be quantified with a numeric value will simplify that process, make it more transparent, make it less sort of subjective and potentially controversial, hopefully streamline the process. I think the use of the metric can be incorporated into standard ecological assessment which can be made as part of a phase 1 habitat survey fairly easily and would expedite negotiations about the extent and suitability of mitigation - so in that respect I think it would potentially make things easier for a developer because everyone knows you have got the figures in black and white in front of you.

Me: And how effective do you think the metric is as a conceptual tool in terms of the parameters you are considering when you are undertaking offsetting - do you think it considers the right amount, too many, too few.

Respondent: I don't think the metric is perfect, I think by necessity it needs to be relatively simple and straight forward and easy to use. I don't think it should be too complicated because it then becomes more difficult for people to understand and to implement. I think, broadly it uses the right parameters, but I think there are still issues. From memory, one of the sort of potential benefits that is touted for offsetting is that by locating offsets at particular places can enhance ecological networks and that is a benefit but the disbenefit of losing sites that might already be part of an ecological network isn't factored into the metric. So, there is no sort of penality for losing sites that form part of an ecological network, that sort of thing - that isn't captured. I think one of the big issues is the irreplaceability of habitats, I think that is something that is particularly controversial, especially around ancient woodlands and whether they should be included in the metric.

Me: Do you think they should be included in the metric or that there should be certain thresholds?

Respondent: Well, I think they should be included in the metric because there will inevitably be instances where ancient woodland is developed because there is an infrastructure project and it can only go a particular route and there is ancient woodland in the way and something like HS2 - a small patch of ancient woodland probably isn't going to stop the scheme in itself. But then there obviously then needs to be the scope to provide sufficient compensation. Obviously in the metric there are these multipliers which are added on to account for the fact that certain habitats take a long time to develop and there is uncertainty about whether they are going to be successful or not. So, I think if the multipliers were amended in some way such that if a recognised irreplaceable habitat such as ancient woodland was affected that really then ratcheted up the multiplier score and meant that lots more initial habitat had to be created basically.

That's interesting, so from your experience, do you think biodiversity offsetting should be made mandatory for infrastructure projects, because I believe it has been made voluntary at the moment?

Yes, the use of offsetting was voluntary within the 6 pilots - so there was no obligation for developers to use offsetting and I think that was part of the reason why it wasn't exactly a runaway success in terms of uptake. I'm not convinced offsetting itself should be made mandatory but I certainly think use of the metric or a metric, perhaps an improved metric could be made mandatory so that it can be seen in black and white whether or not a developer is proposing sufficient mitigation or compensation. Whether they then want to go down the offsetting route to deliver that compensation. I don't think that should necessarily be made mandatory but I certainly think the use of a metric should be made mandatory as part of the initial decision making process.

Me: And do you think streamlining a no net loss goal should be made mandatory - as opposed to biodiversity offsetting?

Respondent: Yes, well I think the national planning policy framework does refer to no net loss and possibly it even mentions net gain, yes it talks about 'moving from a net loss of biodiversity to achieving net gains for the future’. Yes, I mean, it's very easy to talk about no net loss and as I say, that is already in there in national policy but I don't think we are currently in a situation where we are achieving no net loss and we are certainly not achieving net gain. So I guess the question is would biodiversity offsetting help to strengthen the move towards no net loss and hopefully net gain and I think in terms of actually better capturing and quantifying losses and gains arising from developments through the metric, I think that it would potentially help deliver no net loss.

Me: And do you think there is a difference between a no net loss policy goal and a no loss policy goal - the no loss being previously enshrined at the policy level.

Respondent: Well, I would imagine so - No loss would mean no development at all affecting sites of ecological importance which in the real world is never going to happen. Obviously, no net loss allows for there to be some losses as long as they are replaced elsewhere. But as I say I don't think that is currently realistically happening.

Me: And how can you see the offsetting being diffused around the UK after... are the offsetting pilots now finished?

Respondent: They are, yes, they formally finished in April yes.

Me: Can you see it being up-scaled and now implemented as a policy tool for the UK or do you think there still needs to be some work done.

Respondent: I don't know, there is meant to be an evaluation report being produced which looks at all six of the pilots and their experiences and will presumably be making recommendations about perhaps fine tuning of offsetting and then whether or not it will be rolled out nationally. My understanding is that that report was meant to be produced at the end of July and it hasn't been and the rumour is: no decision on offsetting and presumably publication of any reports is now going to happen till after the general election, presumably because it is seen as a bit of an emotive subject. So, yes, to be honest, it is anyones guess as to whether it is going to be rolled out. I don't think there is anything stopping local authorities deciding that they want to use biodiversity offsetting. But I would be very surprised if any really take it and run with it until there has been a formal decision from government about it. To be honest, it is a bit of an unknown at the moment that one.

Me: Thanks, that's interesting. These are just in the next section on the equity considerations. When you have been undertaking offsets do you think compensating affected communities, social communities, not ecological, is always necessary and is it always practical?

Respondent: That's an interesting point. Obviously biodiversity offsetting at the moment and the metric only takes account of ecological impacts and to be honest I think that is the way offsetting should go. Other people have talked about whether other sort of ecosystem services should be taken into account in the metric and you could do that. Potentially you could factor in impacts on community as well, but I think that would then become complicated and unwieldy but I certainly think that impacts on communities do need to be taken into account because a piece of land next to a community which people have always used for walking the dog or for enjoying being in a green space - if that site is then built on and an offset is provided 5-10 miles away that the community has lost a resource, the fact that it is of 5-10 miles away is of no benefit whatsoever because they are not going to jump into the car and drive there to visit it. At the moment I don't think that is certainly not capture in biodiversity offsetting, but I don't know whether it should be or whether it could be. Presumably it would need to be taken into account somewhere in the planning process in terms of alternative natural green space which people can use.

Me: And supposing the issue of proximity was solved between the development site and the offset site, so there weren't any issues there, do you think there should be any kind of parameter to take into account access to nature? Supposing there was public access to a development site previously, do you think it is important there should be commensurate access to that offsetting site.

Respondent: In principal yes, I would have thought so, I guess as long as that doesn't infringe upon the ecological needs of the offset. In principal yes, but I don't know how that could or should be formally incorporated in the biodiversity offsetting approach but I don't see why in principle it couldn't be applied.

Me: OK, and have issues related to social compensation been adequately discussed in the design and implementation stages even if they are not explicitly represented in the metric?

Respondent: To be honest I don't know and I suspect they probably haven't, I mean, as I say I think the metric in biodiversity offsetting is purely focused on ecological impacts rather than social, wider social impacts. So, the issue has been flagged up, but I don't think it has been properly given consideration.

Me: And what is your opinion regarding the use of biodiversity offsetting as a market based tool in terms of developing an ecosystem marketplace and trading offsets between different areas economically.

Respondent: I think there is a lot of controversy about this isn't there and the sort of putting a price of nature and giving everything a value and if everything had a value then everything can be bought and sold and is tradeable and you sort of lose the argument about the intrinsic value of nature and protecting things for their own sake. But that said, we live in an economic world, my - this might be a little bit tangent - but my personal view is that at the moment the true ecological cost of development isn't properly captured. I think in a lot of cases developers effectively get away with probably providing less mitigation or compensation than they should do if the mitigation hierarchy was absolutely adhered to. One of my concerns is that offsetting might end up costing developers more because they are suddenly going to be made to deliver the right amount of ecological compensation which they haven't previously had to and inevitably that is going to end up costing them more money. So, as I said that's probably a bit tangential.

Me: No, that's all brilliant, do you think in general biodiversity units can be translated into economic terms?

Respondent: The problem there is you can't say one biodiversity unit is worth x thousands of pounds because you come up with this unit calculation but then the cost calculation has to be done on a site by site basis and on a bespoke basis depending on what habitat you are actually talking about, the specific issues on the sites, potentially other factors which come into play. So, yes it is not possible to say that one unit costs x thousands of pounds and that possibly is a weakness of offsetting. I'm sure developers would like to know that it is going to cost them this amount whereas actually there needs to be additional work done to calculate: is there going to need to be scrub clearance done on a site to bring it up into condition, that will probably cost a different amount at different sites depending on terrain and typography, the thickness of the scrub and so on. So, it's not quite that simple unfortunately.

Me: Supposing there is an increased involvement of the private sector in offering offset sites and matching up developers with offsetters, what opportunities and risks do you think are posed by the private sector provision of biodiversity offsetting.

Respondent: This is the probably the one I struggled with the most when I was reading you sheet. Are you talking about a broker type organisation like The Environment Bank?

Me: Yes, The Environment Bank would be an example.

Respondent: To a degree I don't think it matters whether it is private sector or public sector or whatever. I guess the private sector they are private sector so they need to make some money out of it so there will be an additional cost there in terms of the transaction and I guess that cost is added on to whatever the developer is having to pay for the offset. It does increase the cost of delivering biodiversity offsetting. But, the flip side of that is I would expect the process would be probably managed and appropriate record keeping, they would actually have the time and energy to go out and look for offset providers and marry them up with developers. One of the big problems with the pilots from my perspective was I was having to deliver it as part of my normal day job and I couldn't be proactive at looking for offsetting sites and really trying to work with developers to key them up to do biodiversity offsetting.

Me: Do you think there will be an effect of austerity or council cuts on how offsetting will evolve, under the dominion of the public sector or private sector, depending on the effect of austerity? Do you think it will determine how offsetting will evolve and who manages it?

Respondent: Yes, I think there will always need to be a role for the public sector, someone like me, a local government ecologist, or potentially if planning authorities have a service level agreement type thing with the Wildlife Trust, there will always still need to be the checking or quality assurance type role of making sure what is being proposed is correct and is deliverable and that the calculation is being done properly and the offset is in the right place and that the right habitat is being proposed and that sort of thing. So, there will always need to be that public sector independent role carried out, but I think only 30 per cent of local authorities have an in house ecologist and presumably as austerity continues to bite that figure is unlikely to go up I would have thought, probably the opposite. So, there are concerns about how the process gets managed within planning authorities and whether planning officers themselves have the time or the expertise to deal with offsetting or whether you do need an ecologist to assist with it.

Me: Do you think there has been adequate training - in terms of the pilots schemes - on how to actually apply the metric on the ground, from your experience?

Respondent: We have no sort of formal training. I guess it was intended to be fairly self explanatory. I think there were a couple of issues - things like assessing the conditions of habitats, there is still quite a large degree of... even in assessing what the habitat itself is... subjectivity there. By necessity, they have to use the Higher Level Stewardship handbook for assessing habitat condition but that doesn't include all the habitats that one might expect to be subject to development. So, there is no sort of brownfield habitats within that. So, assessing habitat type and quality wasn't always straightforward and as I say there is inevitably always subjectivity in terms of assessing is this site in moderate condition or is it in good condition. But yes, there was no formal training about use of the metric.

Me: And perhaps a final point, from your perspective, if a site was previously managed by the council, say a local forest or something like that, a park or nature reserve and was offset, do you think it would make a difference in terms of social and ecological compensation if that site was offset within the public sector or if that site was offset within the private sector. And as a result of it being offset within the private sector the offset developed within private hands or under the management of a private owner of land instead of public ownership of land?

Respondent: I don't know to be honest, I guess, I am assuming if it was publically owned land then there was likely to have been public access. Then I guess, if there was the same sort of provisions made - I guess this goes back to your previous question - if there were the same provisions made for public access under private ownerships as there were under public ownership then I guess ultimately it wouldn't matter. But I suspect there would be local concern about land passing from public to private ownership.