Country Land and Business Association President Victoria Vyvyan said:

“Biodiversity net gain is an important policy to support ambitions for nature recovery and it is right that any development or infrastructure project should make up for any biodiversity losses.

“There is still work to do to fully establish the market for biodiversity units, with a need for greater transparency and more standard contracts to reduce the transaction costs.

“BNG is rightly encouraged to go onsite, but the CLA would also like to see a greater emphasis on offsite provision, which can be provided by landowners in the local area to help reconnect habitats over the landscape.”

The CLA is working with Future Homes Hub and launched a biodiversity unit finder to register offsite units to provide transparency. Landowners can register units and land at https://futurehomes.org.uk/biodiversityunitfindermap